Biochemistry professor Nancy Speck was recently appointed the James J. Carroll Professor in Oncology at Dartmouth Medical School, succeeding previous chair E. Robert Greenberg, who directed the Norris Cotton Cancer Center from 1994 to 2001.
Speck, the associate director for basic science at the cancer center, is the first recipient of the honorary chair who has not served as the center's director.
"I'm surprised by it and very honored," Speck said.
Speck will continue to focus on the quality of her research in this new position.
"It makes me feel very committed to continue to do science of the highest quality of which I'm capable ... I think whenever an honor like this comes your way you strive to be deserving of it," Speck said.
Speck's colleagues praised her work at the medical school and in the laboratory.
"Nancy has distinguished herself as a research scientist, teacher, mentor and institutional citizen. She has played a pivotal role in elevating the Cancer Center to a center of excellence," Dartmouth Medical School Dean Stephen Spielberg said. "The Carroll chair in oncology will enable her to sustain superior scholarship across the spectrum of transnational research in molecular, genetic, immunologic and chemopreventative approaches to solving the challenges that cancer presents."
Speck's research, which focuses on hematopoietic stem cells, or the building blocks of blood cells, has also impressed others at the cancer center, including Director Mark Israel.
"Nancy Speck has made seminal contributions to our understanding of how blood cells develop and how the process goes awry in certain leukemias," Israel said. "Her work is innovative, elegantly designed, meticulously executed and provides a strong basis for new strategies to more effectively treat several different leukemias. She is a highly respected cancer researcher of international repute and greatly deserving of this recognition."
Speck has isolated the proteins involved in certain types of leukemia and is currently working with her long-time collaborator, John Bushweller of the University of Virginia, to isolate compounds that will bind with those proteins, in order to develop drugs to halt the process.
Speck, Bushweller and their coinvestigators were recently awarded a prestigious Leukemia and Lymphoma Society grant, which funds multidisciplinary programs linking basic science and translational research in an effort to prevent or cure leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma. Through this grant, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society recognizes Norris Cotton Cancer Center as a "Specialized Center of Research Excellence."
A graduate of Western Maryland College, now McDaniel College, and Northwestern University, Speck trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Cancer Research and the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the Dartmouth Medical School faculty in 1989.
Norris Cotton Cancer Center, a premier cancer research, education and treatment facility, combines advanced cancer research at Dartmouth Medical School with care at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Designated as one of a select group of comprehensive cancer centers by the National Cancer Institute, it is also ranked one of the top cancer facilities in the country by U.S. News and World Report.
