August 19, 2005

MGH researcher named Academic Scientist of the Year

Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, director of the Steele Laboratory for Tumor Biology in MGH Radiation Oncology, was the recipient of the prestigious Academic Scientist of the Year award at the 2005 Pharmaceutical Achievement Awards ceremony Aug. 8 in Boston. The award honors an individual's extraordinary contributions to the discovery of medicines, to defining and understanding drug target classes, to understandings disease pathophysiologies or to developing breakthrough research methodologies that will have applications in the pharmaceutical industry.

Through several studies, Jain and his team have revealed the nature of barriers to drug delivery in tumors and developed clinically applicable strategies for overcoming these barriers. These findings offer new possibilities for cancer treatment and regenerative medicine and have resulted in Jain being regarded as a pioneer in the field of tumor biology.

"I am grateful to my scientific and clinical collaborators for all their contributions to these discoveries," says Jain. "But what is more gratifying is that our research findings are of help to cancer treatment."

Jain, front row, fourth from left, along with his colleagues from the Steele Lab, celebrate their achievement.