Top recruit
The Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas awarded $6 million to UT Health San Antonio to support the recruitment of internationally known biochemist Patrick Sung, D.Phil.
The Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas awarded $6 million to UT Health San Antonio to support the recruitment of internationally known biochemist Patrick Sung, D.Phil.
Dr. Sung’s discoveries have increased understanding of how DNA can repair damage induced by radiation, carcinogens and other causes. Cancer cells are particularly effective at repairing their DNA, which makes them harder to kill. Hindering this capability is a major target for development of therapeutics.
Dr. Sung will occupy the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Chemistry and will be appointed professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology. Additionally, he will serve as associate dean for research in the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine, and lead a new research program in genetic integrity at the Mays Cancer Center, the newly named home to UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Dr. Sung has served as professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, therapeutic radiology and epidemiology at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.
His appointment will bring him back to UT Health San Antonio, where he worked from 1997 to 2003, first as assistant professor and later as the Zachry Distinguished Professor of Molecular Medicine. From 2001 to 2003, he was co-director of a National Cancer Institute-funded training program in DNA repair at the university.
Dr. Sung plans to bring a lab team of more than a dozen members with him to San Antonio in early 2019.
