Three Siteman Cancer Center research members elected to AAAS

Three Washington University researchers at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, are among the 502 new fellows selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the most distinct honors in the scientific community.

The 2023 class includes Laura J. Bierut, MD, Kendall J. Blumer, PhD, and Jeffrey H. Miner, PhD, all Siteman research members.

It is also the 150th year of the AAAS Fellows program, and this year’s class will be celebrated at a ceremony Sept. 21 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., and featured in the April issue of the journal Science.

Bierut, the Alumni Endowed Professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine, is being honored for her leadership in psychiatric medicine in recognizing the need for a precision approach to the evaluation and management of addictive behaviors. She has conducted extensive research on factors related to the misuse of alcohol, nicotine and illicit drugs and has led several national consortium studies of addiction genetics.

Her research has helped determine that genetic variants influence how much people tend to smoke, as well as which people who smoke are the most likely to develop lung cancer. Other work has identified genetic variants that can help predict whether people will respond to medication to help them quit smoking. Her work laid the foundation for smoking-cessation programs tailored to smokers’ genetics.

Blumer, a professor of cell biology and physiology at the School of Medicine, is being honored for his contributions to understanding G protein signaling and discoveries about inhibition of an overreactive G protein — G alpha q — that causes uveal melanoma, an aggressive and deadly cancer arising from pigmented cells of the eye. Genetic errors in uveal melanoma permanently activate G alpha q.

Blumer’s work has discovered how to shut off overactive G alpha q in uveal melanoma, providing a new therapeutic approach currently under investigation in clinical trials.

Miner, the Eduardo and Judith Slatopolsky Professor of Medicine in Nephrology at the School of Medicine, is being honored for his contributions to understanding kidney function through investigation of genetic diseases. Also a professor of cell biology and physiology, Miner’s research focuses on the glomerular basement membrane, which serves as a component of the kidney’s filtration system responsible for ridding wastes from the body.

Specifically, Miner studies how proteins in the basement membrane are impacted in genetic diseases, such as Pierson and Alport syndromes. Both are rare conditions that usually cause kidney failure. Miner also has studied cystic kidney disease and urogenital development. He uncovered, in mice, protein deficiencies that can lead to congenital anomalies of the kidneys and urinary tract system.