They are the superstars of science. Their discoveries have led to a revolution in how we view obesity and the origins of cancer. On Monday, October 24, Dr. Jeffrey Friedman and Dr. Tony Pawson - both Gairdner Foundation award winners - will speak at the Gairdner Symposium at UBC. The symposium brings the "best of the best" in science to speak at public forums across Canada. Over the past 46 years, 64 of the 274 Gairdner winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize.

Dr. Jeffrey Friedman's discovery of leptin - the "obese" gene that affects the regulation of body weight and metabolism - was widely reported in 1994. Dr. Friedman was the first to substantiate a genetic link to obesity and his work ignited renewed interest in the causes and treatment for obesity, particularly in Western nations, whose girth is growing. According to Statistics Canada, more than 23 percent of Canadians are obese, up from 14 percent, 25 years ago.

Humans lacking leptin eat copious amounts and are extremely obese, but when given a synthetic form of leptin, these people lose massive amounts of weight. However, Dr. Friedman's work found a complex relationship between leptin and weight loss. In the lab, he found that some animals with high levels of leptin develop a resistance to the gene, suggesting that increased production of leptin leads to a higher set point for weight, making it much more difficult to lose excess pounds.

"We now understand that obesity is not simply a result of overindulging or a lack of willpower," says Dr. Timothy Kieffer, associate professor, departments of Cellular & Physiological Sciences and Surgery, UBC. "Dr. Friedman's research provides a powerful physiological explanation of why it is so difficult to lose weight."

Dr. Friedman - a Gairdner awardee in 2005 - is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Professor, Rockefeller University in New York. He is also the director of the Starr Center for Human Genetics, where he is studying the genetic causes of a cluster of health problems called Syndrome X - obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol - in a remote population of over 3,000 people on the Micronesian island Kosrae.

Dr. Tony Pawson, who received the Gairdner award in 1994, has spent 25 years studying how cells grow and communicate with each other. He discovered that a specific region of some proteins - known as the SH2 domain - plays a key role in transmitting cancer-inducing signals inside malignant cells. This led to a whole new understanding of how cancer cells proliferate, and contributed to the development of new targeted cancer treatments.

"Dr. Pawson¡¦s work showed us the metabolic pathway of how cells work - how normal cells go haywire and become cancerous," says Dr. Victor Ling, vice-president of Research, BC Cancer Agency, an agency of the Provincial Health Services Authority. "This fundamental understanding of how cancer takes root has led to the development of new drugs to attack cancer at a molecular level."

Dr. Pawson is the Director of Research, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. In 2005, the venerable National Academy of Sciences elected Dr. Pawson as a foreign associate. It is one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer.

The Gairdner Symposium event sponsors include the BC Cancer Agency, Genome BC, the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Simon Fraser University, and the University of British Columbia.

The symposium will be held October 24 from 4 to 6 p.m. at UBC's Life Sciences Centre, Lecture Hall 1, 2350 Health Sciences Mall. The event is free, however, seating is on a first-come basis. For directions, log on to www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index.php

The Gairdners recognize the outstanding contributions by medical scientists worldwide whose work will significantly improve individuals' quality of life. For more information about the Gairdner awards and profiles of Drs. Friedman and Pawson, please visit the Gairdner website at www.gairdner.ca

For more information:
Papinder Rehncy
BC Cancer Agency
604.877.6261
prehncy@bccancer.bc.ca