2016, Volume 4 - Issue 3

Interview Article

Discoveries Interview: Professor Harold F. Dvorak on the discovery of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF)

"Dr. Harold F. Dvorak is the founding Director of the Center for Vascular Biology Research (CVBR) at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and the Mallinckrodt Distinguished Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. In 1983, Dr. Dvorak and his colleagues were the first to demonstrate that tumor cells secreted vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), known at the time as vascular permeability factor or VPF. This seminal discovery provided the molecular basis for the field of angiogenesis. Dr. Dvorak went on to make the critically important observation that tumors behave like “wounds that do not heal” in that the vascular and stromal responses they induce closely mimic those of healing wounds." Read more... Read more 2... Read more 3...