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(Circulation. 2000;101:e9054.)
© 2000 American Heart Association, Inc.
Cardiovascular News |
Cardiovascular News
Jan L. Breslow, MD, Receives 10th Annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Award
Jan L. Breslow, MD, is the 10th recipient of the annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cardiovascular Research for his pioneering work on apolipoproteins and the genetic variations of one of these, apoE. His seminal work provided a foundation for understanding how the variations in apoE can affect individual susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease, coronary heart disease, and aging.
Dr Breslow, who is the head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism at Rockefeller University, focused his work on the genetic factors that control an individual’s susceptibility to atherosclerosis. He was the first scientist to use recombinant DNA technology to study atherosclerosis. His work revealed that certain genes can predispose a person to the problem or can protect against developing it—even when environmental factors such as diet, exercise, and smoking are taken into account.
He and colleagues in his laboratory developed a "knockout" mouse that lacked a gene for apoE, thus providing the first small animal model of atherosclerosis. Experiments with this animal showed that a single genetic alteration was sufficient to convert a mouse resistant to atherosclerosis into a mouse that developed the disease. This mouse is now a major experimental model for studying the disease.
Richard Gregg, MD, vice president for metabolic and
cardiovascular drug discovery with the Bristol-Myers
Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute, noted that Dr Breslow
"appreciated very early on the potential of molecular biology and
transgenic approaches, and his development of the homozygous apoE
deficient mouse was a milestone in understanding the causes of