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The José Carreras International Fellowship awardee for this year is Claudia S. Huettner, Ph.D. Dr. Huettner was selected from among 18 candidates for her application entitled “Conditional transgenic models of BCR/ABL leukemia.” Her work will be conducted at the Beth Israel/Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Institutes of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts.

Chronic myeloid leukemia is known to be the result of a BCR/ABL fusion gene. Dr. Huettner’s work will focus on a conditional transgenic model of BCR/ABL using tetracycline either to induce or reverse leukemia. With this model it will be possible to characterize the role of the BCR/ABL oncogene and determine which hematopoietic cells express the oncogene. Dr. Huettner will also test and evaluate the effect of tyrosine kinase and farnesyl transferase inhibitors as new classes of potentially valuable therapeutic agents in treating myeloid leukemias.

Dr. Huettner was born in Germany and received her Ph.D. from the University of Wurzburg in 1995. She became a Research Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School in 1998 and now holds the title of Instructor in Medicine.

Of particular interest to Friends is the fact that one of her chief supporters is Dr. Gary Gilliland, a Carreras fellowship awardee in 1991 who now holds the position of Associate Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Laboratory in Boston. In his letter of recommendation Dr. Gilliland wrote “I would give Dr. Huettner my highest possible recommendation and can attest that her application is outstanding. This in my view is an absolute ‘must fund’ for the Fundacion International José Carreras.”

Dr. Huettner will begin the fellowship in July, 2000.

A second fellowship will be awarded this year. Read more in the next issue of Friends to Friends.