Dr. Goff to receive award - first to clone v-ABL oncogene and C-ABL protooncogne

[Guest guest]

His important work contributed to the development of Gleevec.

I-Newswire) - The Retrovirology prize, which will be granted annually,

recognises a mid-career retrovirologist aged 45 to 60. The inaugural prize,

named the M. Jeang Retrovirology prize, is supported through a donation from

the Ming K. Jeang Foundation, an educational foundation based in Houston,

Texas.

Goff, 53, is a prolific and highly accomplished scientist. He has

published over 250 scientific articles. He was one of the first

investigators to clone a functional copy of a retroviral genome, and to use

recombinant DNA methods to study viral replication. Over the last two

decades Dr. Goff has developed and exploited the Moloney murine leukemia

virus as a genetic system. One of his most important results was the

definition of the functional domains of the viral pol gene, and the seminal

discovery of a viral function, now termed integrase, used to insert viral

DNA into the host genome. Goff was also the first to clone the v-abl

oncogene and c-abl protooncogene; two important findings which contributed

to the development of the antitumor drug Gleevec.

Goff was a PhD student at Stanford in Nobel laureate Berg's lab. He did

his post-doc with Baltimore, another Nobel prize winner. He is active

in many professional organizations and serves on numerous editorial boards

including the Open Access journal BMC Microbiology.

In choosing the prize winner, the Retrovirology Editors " considered more

than just scientific excellence, and sought to identify the rare individual

who is both an outstanding researcher and a selfless mentor " . Indeed, Goff

speaks on mentoring as an important aspect of science, " I hope that I will

be remembered as someone who trained a large number of active and productive

scientists -- at last count I have graduated 25 students and trained about

the same number of fellows. I try to give my students considerable freedom

to explore new avenues, to fail and succeed, and so to learn by experience

what is worthwhile and what is too risky. I try to encourage optimism,

self-motivation, and give some sense of the excitement we all have in what

we do. "

The Retrovirology prize was launched in an editorial published in April

calling for nominations, submitted via the Editorial Board of the journal to

a selection committee composed of the editors of Retrovirology: Kuan-Teh

Jeang, Monsef Benkirane, Ben Berkhout, Masahiro Fujii, Lairmore,

Lever, and Mark Wainberg.