Brian Jay Druker

Dr. Brian Jay Druker is the Director of the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Science University, where he is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Druker specializes in caring for and treating patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). In his early medical training, Druker was inspired to find a better way to treat cancer after witnessing chemotherapy's effects on his patients. Building on his clinical experience, Druker led his lab to perform preclinical studies of the drug now known as Gleevec, which has since become a powerful weapon against chronic myeloid leukemia. Gleevec, which attacks the protein causing overproduction of white blood cells in CML, is also used to treat gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GST). Gleevec is designed to zero in on specific cancer-causing molecules, eliminating cancer cells while avoiding serious damage to other, non-cancerous cells. This revolutionized the way cancer is treated for patients with CML and GST. Before Gleevec, 50% of patients with CML survived their disease. Now, with Gleevec, nearly 90% survive. Druker has received numerous awards for his work including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, sometimes called "America's Nobel," the Japan Award, Robert Koch Prize, the Rosenthal Award, the Warren Alpert Prize, the Dameshek Prize, the Karnofsky Award, the Kettering Prize, the Korsmeyer Award, and the Beutler Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Association of Physicians in addition to his American Academy of Arts and Sciences membership. His numerous publications appear in journals such as Cancer Research, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nature Medicine, and New England Journal of Medicine.