Biography- Richard O Hynes

Biography - Richard O. Hynes, PhD, FRS
Richard Hynes is the Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at the Koch
Institute and Department of Biology at MIT, Investigator of the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute and Senior Associate Member of the Broad Institute. He was
formerly Associate Head and then Head of the Biology department and was Director
of the MIT Center for Cancer Research for 10 years. He is a Fellow of the Royal
Society (FRS) of London and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the
Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Hynes was born in Nairobi, Kenya and grew up in Liverpool, England. He did his
undergraduate work in Biochemistry at Trinity College, Cambridge, UK, and his PhD
in Biology at MIT with Paul Gross, biochemically separating cells from early sea
urchin embryos and studying the complexity of their maternal mRNA sequences. He
then returned to the UK as a postdoctoral fellow at Imperial Cancer Research Fund in
London. By investigating the molecular changes on cell surfaces that distinguish
cancer cells from normal cells, he discovered fibronectin, a cell adhesion protein
present on normal cells but noticeably absent on cancer cells.
Dr. Hynes then went back to MIT in 1975 as an Assistant Professor and one of the
founding members of the MIT Cancer Center. There he continued to work out the
biology of fibronectin, showing that fibronectin affects cellular adhesion, migration,
morphology and cytoskeleton and that fibronectin and actin fibrils coalign across the
cell surface. These discoveries established the extracellular matrix (ECM), previously
viewed largely as a structural entity, as having a vital role in controlling cell adhesion,
morphology and migration. Dr. Hynes also made major contributions to the
discovery and first cloning of integrins, a family of protein receptors that bind
fibronectin and other cell adhesion molecules and form transmembrane links to the
cytoskeleton. He and his colleagues also discovered the activation of FAK through
integrins, thereby establishing integrins as true signaling receptors. The Hynes
laboratory cloned and analyzed many of the key molecules involved in cell adhesion
(e.g., fibronectin, thrombospondin, integrins, talin, plakoglobin) and generated the
first knockout mice lacking adhesion molecules (fibronectin, a5 integrin, P-selectin)
and subsequently many others (e.g., other integrins and selectins, cadherins and
multiple ECM proteins) and exploited them to dissect the roles of cell adhesion in
normal development, hemostasis, thrombosis, inflammation, angiogenesis and
cancer). Most recently Hynes has focused on metastasis, particularly the
contributions of platelet-tumor cell interactions and ECM in promoting metastasis and
has developed methods for systematic characterization and analysis of ECM changes
in vivo.
Dr. Hynes’ work over the past 40 years has played a major role in establishing the
molecular basis of cell adhesion and its many diverse and important effects on cells
both in vitro and in vivo. This molecular understanding has formed the basis for
development of antibodies and drugs that modulate cell adhesion and are in clinical
use against thrombosis, inflammation and autoimmune diseases and under
investigation for efficacy against cancers. Molecular understanding of cell-ECM
interactions is also being exploited in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
Dr. Hynes has received numerous awards including the Gairdner International Award,
a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Pasarow Award and the E.B. Wilson medal, which is
the highest award given by the American Society for Cell Biology, in recognition of
his research on extracellular matrix, integrins and cell adhesion. He has served as
President of the American Society for Cell Biology, chaired the NAS committees that
established Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and is currently a
Governor of the Wellcome Trust.

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