9/26/2008

DURHAM -- Darell Bigner, director of The Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke, has been awarded the Zuelch Prize, Germany's most prestigious award for basic neurological research.







Monoclonal antibodies developed in Bigner's laboratory are in late stage multi-institutional clinical trials in patients with malignant brain tumors. Promising responses and survival increases are being observed.

Bigner has been at Duke for 41 years, except for two years spent at the National Institutes of Health. In addition to serving as the director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center, he is the Edwin L. Jones Jr. and Lucille Finch Jones Cancer Research Professor and director of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation Institute at Duke.

He is considered one of the world's leading authorities on brain tumors. He has published more than 500 full-length manuscripts, books, chapters, and reviews on brain tumors. His research focuses on the cause and improved diagnosis and treatment of malignant brain tumors in adults and children.

The Zuelch Prize, awarded annually since 1990, is named in honor of the former director of the department of neurology at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Cologne, Germany, where Bigner studied in the early 1970s. The Zuelch Prize carries an award of $36,710.

Article courtesy of the Durham Herald Sun
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