Hartmut (Hucky) Land has been jointly reappointed as both the Robert and Dorothy Markin Professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Genetics at the School of Medicine and Dentistry. The Board of Trustees approved the reappointments in January. Land also serves as the Director of Research and codirector of the Wilmot Cancer Institute.
Land received his PhD from the University of Heidelberg and completed his postdoctoral training at MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.
An innovative cancer researcher, he has been at the University of Rochester since 1999. Land’s research has been published in Nature and Cell, and he is one of the most frequently cited authors in the field of molecular genetics.
In 2015, Land was an inaugural recipient of the Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute, a $6.3 million grant that will allow Land to continue to test a hypothesis that’s been the cornerstone of his work for 30 years—that different cancers have many shared features, and that understanding the common characteristics of the disease might unlock the next generation of targeted treatments.
Land studies the similarities between diverse types of cancer, such as a cancer cell’s ability to quickly divide and survive despite aggressive treatment, with the goal of discovering new ways to block or interfere with the genetic programs at the core of what makes cells cancerous.