Up for auction the "Nobel Prize in Medicine" Gregg L. Semenza Hand Signed Fan Letter Dated 2019. 

ES-2331

Gregg

Leonard Semenza (born

July 12, 1956) is a Pediatrician and Professor of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He serves as the director of

the vascular program at the Institute for Cell Engineering. He is a 2016

recipient of the Albert

Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. He is known for his

discovery of HIF-1, which allows cancer cells to adapt to oxygen-poor

environments. He shared the 2019 Nobel Prize

in Physiology or Medicine for "discoveries of how cells

sense and adapt to oxygen availability" with William Kaelin Jr. and Peter J. Ratcliffe. Semenza

was born on July 12, 1956,[5] in Flushing, New York City; he and his four siblings grew up

in Westchester County, New

York. Semenza grew up in Westchester County, New York and

attended Washington Irving Intermediate School in Tarrytown, New York. He

then attended Sleepy Hollow High School where he was a mid-fielder on the

soccer team and graduated in 1974. As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he

studied medical genetics and mapped genes on chromosome 21. For his PhD at

the University of Pennsylvania,

he sequenced genes linked to the recessive genetic disorder, beta-thalassemia Semenza subsequently completed his Pediatrics residency at Duke University before completing a postdoctoral

fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Semenza

became the founding director of the Vascular Program at the Johns Hopkins Institute

for Cell Engineering following his post-doctorate. While a post-doctorate

researcher at Johns Hopkins, Semenza evaluated gene expression in transgenic animals to determine how this affected the

production of erythropoietin (EPO),

known to be part of the means for the body to react to hypoxia,

or low oxygen levels in the blood. Semenza identified the gene sequences

that expressed hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF)

proteins. Semenza's work showed that the HIF proteins consisted of two

parts; HIF-1β, a stable base to most conditions, and HIF-1α that

deteriorated when nominal oxygen levels were present. HIF-1α was

further found essential to the EPO production process, as test subjects

modified to be deficient in HIF-1α were found to have

malformed blood vessels and decreased EPO levels. These HIF proteins were found

across multiple test animals. Semenza further found that HIF-1α overproduction

could lead to cancer in other subjects. Semenza's research overlapped with that

of William Kaelin and Peter J. Ratcliffe on

determining the mechanism of oxygen detection in cells, and how EPO production

is regulated by HIF and other factors. This has led to the development of drugs

that help regulate these processes for patients with anaemia and kidney failure.