Dr. Tony Hunter, 2018 Tang Prize laureate in Biopharmaceutical Science, offered the Tang Prize Foundation his takes on the current crisis, believing that “the key to moving beyond the COVID-19 pandemic will be good science.” Impressed with how swiftly the biomedical research community re-oriented its research to concentrate on the study of the novel coronavirus, he is confident that solutions are in the offing, as vaccines are being developed, and new therapies and drugs should also be available soon.
A professor at the Salk Institute, Dr. Hunter revealed to us that several of his colleagues, both at the Salk Institute and around the world, have quickly “changed directions in order to learn more about the life cycle and biology of the COVID-19 virus.” Explaining his sense of optimism, he told us that “with so much fire power and so many resources being focused on this deadly disease, I am certain that progress will be rapid and that new therapeutic approaches and drugs will emerge within a few months, to add to conventional vaccine therapies, where novel approaches seem to be leading the way.”
Dr. Hunter is the first scientist to discover tyrosine phosphorylation and to show that the Src oncoprotein is a tyrosine kinase. His discoveries have enabled us to understand the important role protein kinases play in the regulation of cell growth and heralded a new era in research on cell signaling.
