Joe Gray, Ph.D., has been named the 18th recipient of the Alfred G. Knudson Award in Cancer Genetics from NIH’s National Cancer Institute.

The Knudson Award is named for Dr. Alfred Knudson, a physician and geneticist who revolutionized the understanding of the genetic basis for cancer.

Each year, the award recognizes a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the field of cancer genetics.

Dr. Gray received the award and presented the award lecture on January 14 at the annual NCI Intramural Scientific Investigators Retreat. His talk was entitled “Exploiting the Cancer ‘ome’—from Molecular Markers to Architectural Therapeutics.”

Dr. Gray, a physicist and an engineer by training, holds positions as the Gordon Moore Endowed Chair, Biomedical Engineering Department Chair; Director, Center for Spatial Systems Biomedicine; and Associate Director for Translational Research, Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health & Science University. He is also Emeritus Professor, University of California San Francisco; and Senior Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was a Staff Scientist in the Biomedical Sciences Division of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1972-1991), Professor of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (1991-2011), and Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences and Life Sciences Division Director at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2003-2011). He is Principal Investigator of the National Cancer Institute /Integrative Cancer Biology Program (ICBP) Center for Cancer Systems Biology aimed at understanding and modeling of RTK signaling, PI of a DOD Innovator project aimed at improving early breast cancer detection, Co-investigator on human and mouse cancer genome atlas projects, and PI of a Keck Project to initiate development of image-based approaches that will allow architectural analysis of the nanoscale molecular assemblies that regulate information flow in cells.

Dr. Gray joins Brian Druker, M.D., director of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, as a recipient of this prestigious NCI honor. Other past recipients include Robert Weinberg, Bert Vogelstein, J. Michael Bishop, Arnold Levine, Harold Varmus, Leland Hartwell, H. Robert Horvitz and Elizabeth H. Blackburn.