David Housman

David E. Housman is an American geneticist. He is the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is known for his contribution to the discovery of the HTT gene that causes Huntington’s disease.

David Housman
BornJuly 20, 1946
Alma materBrandeis University
Scientific career
FieldsGenetics, Cancer Biology

Early life

David Housman was born on July 20, 1946. As a child he was a control in the original Salk polio vaccine trials in New York, an early experience that left him interested in how clinical trials could be more efficiently conducted.[1]

Academic career

Housman received his BA in 1966 and MA in 1971 from Brandeis University.[2] As one of the first postdocs in the lab of Harvey Lodish at MIT, Housman showed that all mammalian proteins begin with a methionine residue transferred from a specific met-initiator tRNA.[3][4] Between 1973 and 1975 he taught at the University of Toronto and was on the staff of the Ontario Cancer Institute.[5] He joined the MIT faculty in 1975. In his lab at MIT, he mentored Jim Gusella and Daniel Haber.

Housman has co-founded five biotech companies: Integrated Genetics (now part of Genzyme), Somatix Therapy Corp, Viariagenics, Kenna Technologies, and Audacity Therapeutics.

Research

Housman’s research is focused on the genetics of hereditary disease, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. His laboratory studies the WT1 gene, whose mutation causes the Wilms’ tumor in the kidneys, and is exploring it as a therapeutic target for leukemia.[6]

In 1978 Housman received a grant from the Hereditary Disease Foundation to search for the gene behind Huntington’s disease using genetic markers, and embarked on this work with Jim Gusella, then a postdoc in his lab at MIT.[7] This led to the discovery of the neighborhood of the gene by Gusella's lab at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1983.[8] The Housman lab is currently investigating the modifier genes responsible for determining the age of onset for Huntington’s.[6]

Awards and honors
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References
  1. "David Housman – Audacity Therapeutics". Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  2. "David E. Housman". FSHD Society. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  3. "Lodish Lab profile". lodishlab.wi.mit.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  4. HOUSMAN, DAVID; JACOBS-LORENA, MARCELO; RAJBHANDARY, U. L.; LODISH, HARVEY F. (August 1970). "Initiation of Haemoglobin Synthesis by Methionyl-tRNA". Nature. 227 (5261): 913–918. doi:10.1038/227913a0. ISSN 0028-0836.
  5. Becoming MIT : moments of decision. Kaiser, David. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0-262-11323-6. OCLC 495547062.CS1 maint: others (link)
  6. "The Koch Institute: David E. Housman". ki.mit.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  7. Bishop, Jerry E., 1931- (2014). Genome : the story of the most astonishing scientific adventure of our time, the attempt to map all the genes in the human body. Waldholz, Michael, 1950-. New York: Open Road Integrated Media. ISBN 1-306-98797-0. OCLC 885020256.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. "Hunting Down Huntington's". Discover Magazine. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  9. "Teaching prize recipients". MIT School of Science. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  10. "David Housman". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  11. "IOM elects Housman". MIT News. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
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