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Charles Sawyers, PhD, MD has made critical contributions to elucidating the role of the BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). He was a primary participant in the design and conduct of clinical trials of the ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitor imatinib (Gleevec), and his lab was the first to identify mechanisms of drug resistance due to Bcr-Abl gene mutation. More recently he led preclinical and clinical studies of the novel Abl kinase inhibitor BMS-354825, which shows promise in CML patients with imatinib resistance. Dr. Sawyers has also conducted molecular biological investigations into the roles of hormones and kinase pathways in the progression and treatment of cancer. Dr. Sawyers received his BS from Princeton University and his MD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the UCSF Medical Center, and a clinical fellowship in Hematology/Oncology and a post-doctoral fellowship in Molecular Biology at the UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. Sawyers has won numerous honors and awards from highly regarded organizations, most recently the Karnofsky Memorial Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He is the Peter Bing Professor at the UCLA School of Medicine and is on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Cancer Research. | 