Raymond L. White, noted genetic researcher and director of the newly opened Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, has stepped down from that post to return to research. White announced last month that he will become the institute's senior scientific adviser.
Dr. Stephen Prescott, who has served as the institute's senior research director, will replace White as executive director, effective immediately.White called the change an opportunity to "live the dream of every academic administrator" to shepherd a project through exciting times -- in this case, getting the institute up and running -- then step back into research. And research is White's passion, according to Jon M. Huntsman, U. President Bernie Machen and others who gathered to praise White after the Sept. 21 announcement.
The administrative shifts came just two days after the Huntsman Cancer Institute announced a two-year collaboration with Incyte Pharmaceuticals to study the roles of genes in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of cancer. The institute will become the first academic institution to access Incyte's database, an extensive collection of information about human genes.
The company also will provide research tools to help scientists tell how genes function. That's important to identify which genes make the best targets for drug delivery. Of early interest in the collaboration is information about colon cancer. The institute will provide the company with tissue and tumor samples, as well as its research findings from a colon cancer program.
Also on Sept. 21, the Huntsman Cancer Institute's Center for Children research laboratories, a multidisciplinary program dedicated to finding new cures for childhood cancer, was dedicated.
Sponsored jointly by the Huntsman Cancer Institute and Primary Children's Medical Center, the center for children is a unique collaborative effort that coordinates clinical care with bench research.
Huntsman formally opened the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah with a dedication ceremony Sept. 13. He and his wife, Karen, donated $100 million to establish the center in 1995.
White, who earned a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a pioneer in developing the molecular tools to construct a map of genetic markers for the human genome, according to the biographical sketch provided by the U. Investigators have used that map to find the chromosomal locations of some genes that are responsible for inherited diseases. It was in his laboratory that researchers found the procedure used to link changes in the pattern of DNA to human diseases, resulting in the identification of more than 100 disease-causing genes worldwide.
White will remain chairman of the department of oncological sciences at the U. School of Medicine and hopes to identify and characterize genes that are associated with cancers which have a genetic, inherited basis. Nearly 20 years ago, his work helped clarify the genetic mechanism driving development of retinoblastoma, an inherited cancer of the eye. Researchers in his laboratory also have found two other cancer-associated genes -- one mutating into neurofibromatosis and the other causing colon polyps, a precursor to colon cancer.
Prescott, a professor of internal medicine who holds the H.A. and Edna Benning Presidential Endowed Chair, was a founder and director of the Eccles Program in Human Molecular Biology and Genetics. Recently, he received the Utah Governor's Medal for Science and Technology.
Deseret News staff writer Jay Hinton contributed to this story.