St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientist named to honorary society
Charles J. Sherr, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Tumor Cell Biology Department at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, has been named to the 2013 class of new Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Sherr’s work has advanced scientific understanding of the mammalian cell cycle and tumor suppressor genes, which are both disrupted in cancer.
Founded in 1780, the Academy is an honorary society and independent policy research center. Throughout its history, the Academy has elected leaders from each generation, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.
Sherr is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. Among other honors, he has received the Pezcoller-AACR International Award for Cancer Research, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research, the Landon-AACR Prize for Cancer Research, and the Charles S. Mott Prize by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation. Sherr also holds the Herrick Foundation Endowed Chair in Tumor Cell Biology at St. Jude.
This is the third year a St. Jude faculty member has been honored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Martine Roussel, Ph.D., and Brenda Schulman, Ph.D., were named fellows in 2011 and in 2012 respectively.
The class of 2013 includes winners of the Nobel Prize; the Lasker Award; the Pulitzer and the Shaw prizes; the Kennedy Center Honors; and Grammy, Emmy, Academy and Tony awards. The new class will be inducted at a ceremony in October at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats and cures childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. It is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. Treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to 80% since the hospital opened more than 50 years ago. St. Jude shares the discoveries it makes, and every child saved at St. Jude means doctors and scientists worldwide can use that knowledge to save thousands more children. To learn more, visit stjude.org or follow St. Jude on social media at @stjuderesearch.