Hutchinson Center President Larry Corey Elected to American Academy of Art and Sciences 2012 Class of Fellows

SEATTLE, April 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Larry Corey, M.D., president and director of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy-research centers.

"I'm extremely honored to be in the same company as so many highly-regarded people in the fields of science, medicine and the arts," Corey said. "I'm also very proud to join the six other Hutchinson Center scientists who preceded me as members of the academy."

Corey has led the Hutchinson Center since January 2011 and has held other leadership positions there since 1996, first as head of infectious disease sciences in the Clinical Research Division and later as senior vice president and co-director of the Center's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division.

He is the Hutchinson Center's second president to be elected to the Academy. Yeast geneticist Lee Hartwell, Ph.D., a 2001 Nobel laureate, was elected in 1998. He led the Center from 1997 until 2010.

Corey is among 220 leaders in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts, business and public affairs who have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2012 class of fellows. This year's class includes winners of the National Medal of Science, the Lasker Award, the Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, the Kennedy Center Honors, as well as Grammy, Emmy, Academy and Tony awards.

The new class will be inducted at a ceremony Oct. 6 at the Academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.

An internationally renowned expert in virology, immunology and vaccine development, Corey's research has focused on herpes viruses, HIV and other viral infections, particularly those associated with cancer. He also is principal investigator of the Hutchinson Center-based HIV Vaccine Trials Network, an international collaboration of scientists and institutions that combines clinical trials and laboratory-based studies to accelerate the development of HIV vaccines.

Corey is a professor of laboratory medicine and medicine, adjunct professor of pediatrics and microbiology, and holder of the Lawrence Corey Endowed Chair in Medical Virology at the University of Washington. He is also an infectious disease physician at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

Besides his leadership role, Corey is recognized as one of the most highly cited and funded investigators in the United States. He has authored 12 books and more than 600 scientific publications and is a member of numerous scientific committees and editorial boards.

His honors and awards include election in 2008 to the Institute of Medicine, a prestigious branch of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American Epidemiological Society and the Association of American Physicians.

In addition to Corey and Hartwell, other Academy members at the Hutchinson Center are Linda B. Buck, Ph.D., who in 2004 received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for her groundbreaking work on the network responsible for our sense of smell; Mark T. Groudine, M.D., Ph.D., deputy director of the Hutchinson Center and former director of its Basic Sciences Division; Robert Eisenman, Ph.D., a leader in the field of oncogenes, aberrantly regulated genes that cause cancer; cell biologist Daniel Gottschling, Ph.D., a member of the Basic Sciences Division; and the late Harold M. Weintraub, Ph.D., an international leader in the field of molecular biology.

Since its founding in 1780, the Academy has elected leading "thinkers and doers" from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the nineteenth, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the twentieth. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, our interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Our researchers, including three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for health, knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. For more information, please visit fhcrc.org.

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SOURCE Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center