Ludwig Johns Hopkins Co-director Bert Vogelstein was awarded the 2020 Jessie Stevenson Medal for his transformative work illuminating the fundamental principles and molecular drivers of cancer initiation and progression, which laid the groundwork for more sophisticated approaches to diagnosing and treating cancers. The multi-step model of cancer progression he developed more than three decades ago, popularly known as the “Vogelgram,” is now taught around the world. His subsequent work charting the full spectrum of genes expressed in scores of malignancies has left a mark on virtually every aspect of basic and translational cancer research. Today, his lab mainly focuses on developing novel diagnostic methods for the earlier detection of cancers and new gene-based therapeutic approaches for treating advanced cancers. The Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal is awarded by the National Academy of Sciences every two years for outstanding research in the medical sciences.
This article appeared in the April 2020 issue of Ludwig Link. Click here to download a PDF (1 MB).