The ASIP Young Scientist Leadership Award is supported by the A.D. Sobel – ASIP Education Fund and recognizes outstanding and sustained achievements at the earliest stages of a career in biomedical research. Accomplishments include volunteered service to the ASIP and scientific publications and presentations. The 2017 recipient is Dr. Chad M Walesky, a postdoctoral fellow in Medicine in the Genetics Division at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Walesky, under the mentorship of Dr. Udayan Apte, Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics at the University of Kansas Medical Center, engineered novel mouse models to identify important pathways in liver cancer pathogenesis. Furthermore, using these models, he discovered a novel function for the nuclear receptor HNF4α in the inhibition of hepatocyte proliferation and provided some of the earliest evidence to positively identify it as a tumor suppressor within the liver. As a result of these efforts, Dr. Walesky served as first author in articles that described his novel mouse model, including The American Journal of Physiology and Hepatology. Drs. Walesky and Apte have also recently published a review article in Gene Expression, describing the role of HNF4α in cell proliferation and cancer pathogenesis. Among these achievements he has also co-authored a number of other studies in journals such as The American Journal of Pathology and Nature, as well as a book chapter in Liver Regeneration.
In addition, Dr. Walesky was recently awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation to study the role of HNF4α/β-catenin interaction as a novel model of cholangiocarcinoma pathogenesis.
Dr. Walesky received his PhD with Honors from the University of Kansas Medical Center. Dr. Walesky has been a member of ASIP since 2011, first as a graduate student and now as a post-doctoral fellow. He has been a member of the ASIP Committee for Career Development and Diversity since 2013 and is the co-editor of the ASIP Trainee Newsletterand has been named co-editor of the newly launched ASIP Next-Gen Blog.
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Dr. Walesky will present his award lecture, "A Balancing Act: Role of HNF4α/β-catenin Interaction in Hepatobiliary Development and Cholangiocarcinoma Formation," on Saturday, April 22, 2017 at the ASIP 2017 Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology in Chicago, Illinois and will receive the Young Scientist Leadership Award later that day at the ASIP Awards Presentation and Business Meeting.
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About Experimental Biology 2017
Experimental Biology is an annual meeting comprised of more than 14,000 scientists and exhibitors from six host societies and multiple guest societies. With a mission to share the newest scientific concepts and research findings shaping clinical advances, the meeting offers an unparalleled opportunity for exchange among scientists from across the United States and the world who represent dozens of scientific areas, from laboratory to translational to clinical research. http://www.experimentalbiology.org #expbio #ASIP2017
About the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP)
ASIP is a society of biomedical scientists who investigate mechanisms of disease. Investigative pathology is an integrative discipline that links the presentation of disease in the whole organism to its fundamental cellular and molecular mechanisms. ASIP advocates for the practice of investigative pathology and fosters the professional career development and education of its members. http://www.asip.org
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