STONY BROOK, N.Y., December 21, 2006 – Michael J. Hayman, Ph.D., has been named Associate Director for Research of the Stony Brook University Cancer Center. Appointed by Richard N. Fine., M.D., Dean of the School of Medicine, Dr. Hayman has been a cancer researcher for 30 years and has served as a Professor of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology for the past 22 years.
Dr. Hayman will spearhead the collaboration of investigators involved in cancer-related research across many clinical and basic science departments at Stony Brook, such as Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, Pharmacological Sciences, Biochemistry & Cell Biology, Chemistry, Surgery, Urology and Pediatrics.
“A significant mission of the Stony Brook University Cancer Center is to foster research activities in all areas related to cancer, and Dr. Hayman is well suited to assume this task,” says Dr. Fine, who notes that with the opening of the Cancer Center outpatient facility, the Medical Center is poised to assume a leadership role in providing care for Long Islanders with cancer.
“Research and patient care go hand-in-hand,” says Martin S. Karpeh, Jr., Director of the Cancer Center. “In order to provide the best treatments, cutting edge research involving both basic and clinical investigators must be a growing part of the Cancer Center. Dr. Hayman’s background, expertise, and vision will help bring our most promising research to the forefront to impact patient care.”
“My goal is to provide an environment where basic and translational research can flourish to generate new discoveries that will provide the framework for future new treatments,” says Dr. Hayman, whose laboratory research centers on understanding the mechanisms that control proliferation, differentiation, and death of cells, and how oncoproteins disable these mechanisms to cause cancer.
Dr. Hayman says that the Cancer Center will look to develop targeted therapies resulting from basic research that successfully translates to the clinic. Such discoveries, he points out, may come about through collaborative investigations between different disciplines, such as molecular biology, cancer biology, immunology or genetics, and through many approaches. As an example, one approach is research of inhibitors of specific enzymes that are activated in certain cancers. In recent years, this enzyme-inhibiting approach has been successful in treating chronic mylogenous leukemia (CML).
Dr. Hayman, a member of the American Society of Microbiology, the British Society of Cell Biology, and the American Association for Cancer Research, received his doctorate in Biochemistry from the National Institute for Medical Research in London. Dr. Hayman lives in East Patchogue with his wife, Paula Enrietto, and son, Matthew.
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