Bert Vogelstein

Bert Vogelstein (born 1949) is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at The Johns Hopkins University. He clarified the role of the gene p53, which repairs DNA in dividing cells and destroys the cell if its DNA cannot be repaired. Damaged p53 is responsible for half of all cancers. More recently, his group sequenced the DNA of human breast and colon cancer, identifying genes which are mutated in each cancer.

Vogelstein developed the concept that some genes, such as TP53, KRAS, and APC are involved in cancer with great frequency, in close to 100% of some cancers; he called these genes "mountains." But thousands of genes are involved in cancer but are found at very low frequency, under 5%; he called these genes "hills." Collectively, however, the hills are also required for most cancers.

He found that while the number and complexity of these thousands of genes might be bewildering, most of them can be grouped into twelve critical pathways, such as apoptosis, DNA damage control, invasion, cell cycle signaling, KRAS signaling, and TGF-beta signaling.

His first degree was in mathematics graduating summa cum laude in 1970 from the University of Pennsylvania. His interest was more in medicine and he received his M.D. from The Johns Hopkins University four years later. He was subsequently a resident in pediatrics at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He has received the Gairdner Foundation International Award, Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in 1998, Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, and other awards for his research. His recent work has often concerned oncogenes. His observation that colon cancer progresses from benign polyps to malignant cancers has revolutionized screening for colon cancer by colonoscopy.

Vogelstein lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife Ilene, and has three children - R. Jacob, Joshua and Ahava. He grew up in Pikesville, Maryland, a northwestern suburb of Baltimore. He attended Pikesville High School.