May 2014
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Scott Powers as Professor in the Department of Pathology and the Director of Clinical Cancer Genomics in the Cancer Center.
Dr. Powers earned his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at Columbia University and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship, supported by the Leukemia Society of America, at the Cold Spring Harbor Biology Laboratory. He was subsequently recruited to a faculty appointment in the Department of Biochemistry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 1988. Dr. Powers subsequently held several positions in the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries, holding senior leadership positions at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Amplicon Corporation, and Tularik Genomics. Dr. Powers returned to academia in 2004, as Director of the Human Genome Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Over the course of his career at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, Dr. Powers advanced the field of genomics in cancer research by defining the transforming properties of PPM1D, KCNK9, and the tyrosine kinase gene ACK1 in breast, ovarian and prostate adenocarcinomas, and by identifying genetically linked transcriptional factors that cooperate to transform cells in lung cancer. To translate genomics research related to potential therapeutic targets, Dr. Powers integrated cancer genome profiling with focused cDNA and RNAi screens to systematically search for driver genes and therapeutic targets. His current research utilizes next-gen sequencing approaches to develop new cancer diagnostics, including single cell genomics to investigate the origins of cancer and their response to treatments.
Dr. Powers’ research has been supported by numerous grants from the National Cancer Institute and other federal sources; he is currently the PI of a multi-institutional U01 award to support the application of genomics to developmental therapeutics. He holds many US patents, he has authored nearly 90 manuscripts related to genomic changes in cancer that have been published in high impact journals, and he chairs an important National Cancer Institute Study Section. His strong academic background, as well as the depth of his experience in the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical industries have uniquely qualified him to continue to make important research contributions through research in his own lab while also serving as a resource to the members of our academic community, through his service as the Cancer Center Director of Clinical Cancer Genomics at Stony Brook Medicine.
Kenneth R. Shroyer, MD, PhD
The Marvin Kuschner Professor and Chair of Pathology
