Novartis and Drew University will honor three leading cancer researchers with awards in biomedical research on Nov. 14, 2002, during a symposium at the University. The title of the event is "Cancer Research and Therapy: Molecular Mechanisms."

Novartis-Drew Awards will be given to Dr. Harold Varmus, President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York; Dr. Frank McCormick, Director of the University of California Cancer Center and Cancer Research Institute in San Francisco; and Dr. Brian Druker, Professor of Medicine at Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland.

A Novartis-Drew award winner last year, Dr. Sidney Brenner, was recently awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in medicine, along with Dr.H. Robert Horvitz, who won a Novartis-Drew award in 1996.

At the Nov. 14 conference, Varmus will speak about "Genes, Mice and Cancer;" McCormick will discuss "Cancer Therapy based on Ras and p53;" and Druker will address "Targeted Cancer Therapies: Lessons Learned from ST l571 and CML."

Varmus received the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1989 for discovering oncogenes, which are genes present in normal cells that can become cancer cells. McCormick demonstrated the role of oncogenes in signal transduction, a process by which cells can be altered. These studies then led Druker to ST l571, a new cancer drug with remarkable success in putting chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) into remission in trials.

The event is the 26th Annual Novartis-Drew Symposium and is held in the Hall of Sciences, Room 4, at Drew beginning at 1:30 PM. The event is free and open to the public. Reservations are requested via bpetrack@drew.edu. Persons needing special assistance should contact Drew at 973-408-3103 at least five working days in advance of the symposium.