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Lewis Cantley will receive the 2015 Canada-Gairdner Award in October, for his groundbreaking discovery of a family of enzymes that are fundamental to understanding cancer.

Prof. Cantley has been a Section Head of the Cell Signalling Section since the beginnings of F1000 in 2001. He is the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College, and a member of the national Academy of Sciences. In 2013, he won the inaugural Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Cantley will now receive a $100,000 Canadian prize upon the presentation of the Canada-Gairdner award on October 29th in Toronto.

The award honours his groundbreaking discovery of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) enzyme and its signalling pathway, which has a primary role in cancer. His breakthroughs have led to the development of many drugs that target the this pathway, with many more to come in the future. Cantley said, “this will be a game-changer in the war against cancer and will make a big impact on patient care.”

Many congratulations to Lewis Cantley on this fantastic achievement!