Erkki Ruoslahti

Erkki Ruoslahti
Born (1940-02-16) 16 February 1940 (age 84)
Imatra, Finland
NationalityUS, Finland
Alma materUniversity of Helsinki, Finland
Known forWork on cell adhesion and nanomedicine
Awards
Robert J. and Claire Pasarow Foundation Medical Research Award (Cancer, 1990)
Scientific career
FieldsCancer, Tumor biology, Vascular biology, Neurodegeneration
Institutions

Erkki Ruoslahti (born 16 February 1940 in Imatra, Finland) is a cancer researcher and distinguished professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute.[1] He moved from Finland to the United States in 1976.[2]

Ruoslahti made seminal contributions to biology of extracellular matrix and its receptors.[3] He was one of the discoverers of fibronectin, an adhesion molecule and component of extracellular matrices, and he subsequently identified and cloned a number of other extracellular matrix components and adhesion molecules. In 1984, he identified the sequence within fibronectin that mediates cell attachment, called RGD for the amino acids of which it’s composed,[4] and isolated the cellular receptors that bind that sequence, now known as integrins.[5] The RGD discovery has led to the development of drugs for vascular thrombosis and cancer, among other diseases.[6]

Ruoslahti currently studies specific marker molecules in blood vessels. He introduced the concept of vascular "zip codes," the idea that each tissue bears molecular signatures that can be targeted by affinity ligands, and used in vivo peptide phage display to prove the concept and develop numerous tumor-homing peptides.[7]

  1. ^ "Erkki Ruoslahti". Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
  2. ^ Closing In on Cancer : In Search of a Cure, a La Jolla Research Center Reaches Into the Outer Limits Los Angeles Times
  3. ^ Ruoslahti, E; Pierschbacher, MD (1987). "New perspectives in cell adhesion: RGD and integrins". Science. 238 (4826): 491–497. Bibcode:1987Sci...238..491R. doi:10.1126/science.2821619. PMID 2821619.
  4. ^ Pierschbacher, MD; Ruoslahti, E (1984). "Cell attachment activity of fibronectin can be duplicated by small synthetic fragments of the molecule". Nature. 309 (5963): 30–33. Bibcode:1984Natur.309...30P. doi:10.1038/309030a0. PMID 6325925. S2CID 4371931.
  5. ^ Dedhar, S; Ruoslahti, E; Pierschbacher, MD (1987). "A cell surface receptor complex for collagen type I recognizes the Arg-Gly-Asp sequence". J Cell Biol. 104 (3): 585–593. doi:10.1083/jcb.104.3.585. PMC 2114550. PMID 3469204.
  6. ^ Ley, K; Rivera-Nieves, J; Sandborn, WJ; Shattil, S (2016). "Integrin-based therapeutics: biological basis, clinical use and new drugs". Nat Rev Drug Discov. 15 (3): 173–183. doi:10.1038/nrd.2015.10. PMC 4890615. PMID 26822833.
  7. ^ Ruoslahti, E. (2004). "Vascular zip codes in angiogenesis and metastasis". Biochem Soc Trans. 32 (3): 397–402. doi:10.1042/bst0320397. ISSN 0300-5127. PMID 15157146.