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Organic chemistry classes can create all kinds of memories, but few are as permanent and meaningful as those in Alfred Singer ’68 and Dinah (Schiffer) Singer ’69. They have built lasting marriages and influential careers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) since they met in 1965, graduating from MIT with degrees in biology (Dinah) and philosophy minor in biology (AI). Significant advances in the understanding and treatment of cancer.
Singers are fighting cancer from different angles. Al’s research into how the human body distinguishes foreign molecules from its own molecules led him to become chief of NCI’s Center for Cancer Research’s Experimental Immunology Branch, while Dinah’s research background and management skills set the stage for leadership of several major strategic initiatives. prepared.
After the couple joined NCI in 1975, Dinah researched gene transcription and expression and molecular immunology, established her own laboratory, and served for 20 years as director of the Cancer Biology Division, which funds most of the basic cancer research in the United States.
This led to his seven-year, $1.8 billion audit. Cancer Moonshot programIt aims to increase the availability of treatments and improve prevention and early detection through scientific discovery, collaboration and data sharing. Through more than 70 new consortia and programs, the program (launched in 2016) has made progress in immunotherapy, childhood cancer research, tumor mapping and many other areas.
Dinah’s appointment as NCI’s deputy director of scientific strategy and development in 2019 preceded the 2020 pandemic and demonstrated her abilities in a new way: Congress has asked NCI to respond to immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 and possible when asked to conduct basic and clinical research on approaches. vaccines led the effort.
“The idea is to go beyond immediate response and learn more about responding to future pathogens we haven’t seen before,” he says. “It happened at lightning speed for a large program. We awarded 21 grants and set up four centers for clinical testing. We are being funded for up to five years because we don’t know how long it will take for the pandemic to resolve.”
Meanwhile, Al plunged into a puzzle that first intrigued him in the early 1970s, when the newlywed Singers were pursuing his PhD at Columbia University (Dinah, PhD, Al and MD). “What we were taught as the basis of disease was never the basis of what we see in patients,” he recalls. “Bacteria cause pneumonia, but pneumonia is not caused by bacteria – the diseases are largely caused by the body’s response to the pathogens they encounter.”
A pivotal moment came when Dinah received Al a copy of Nobel laureate Macfarlane Burnet’s book as a first-year anniversary gift. Self and Non-Self. “He thought it was a philosophy book, but it was actually an immunology book that sparked my interest in immunology and fueled it for decades,” says Al.
Burnet’s focus is on the mechanisms a body uses to distinguish between its own elements (“self”) and foreign entities such as bacteria, viruses, or toxins (“non-self”). When the research began, scientists believed that white blood cells, known as T cells, performed this function, but how they acquired this ability was unknown. Al’s early studies showed the thymus to play an important role, and later work in his lab found that the ability of T cells to recognize the body’s own cells is acquired rather than genetically predetermined.
“I am particularly proud to have found the molecular basis for this crazy recognition system that the immune system has, called major tissue compatibility complex (MHC) restriction, which leads to the functions of different T cells, such as helper cells and killer cells.” says Al. “Others have used it and applied it to cancer quite successfully.”
Dinah and Al have two sons and enjoy traveling, theater and collecting works by local artists, but the “family business” of cancer research is never far away. “We probably talk more about shopping than we think,” says Al. “It’s an integral part of our lives – I don’t think we make a distinction.”
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