Award David M. Goldenberg receives Benedict Cassen Prize 2024
We congratulate our alumnus Prof. Dr. David M. Goldenberg, who has been awarded the prestigious Benedict Cassen Prize 2024 as a leading expert in the field of radioimmunotherapy. The Cassen Prize is awarded every two years by the Education and Research Foundation (ERF) for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging and recognizes outstanding scientific achievements and significant advances in nuclear medicine.
David M. Goldenberg, who completed his medical training at Heidelberg University, has advanced the development of radiopharmaceutical agents that make it possible to specifically identify and treat cancer cells. “It is a great honor to receive the Benedict Cassen Prize,” said the Heidelberg alumnus at the award ceremony in Toronto, Canada, in mid-2024. ”Over the past 50 years, I have witnessed the developments in the field of nuclear medicine, and I am very pleased that we can now precisely and selectively target cancer sites with radiopharmaceutical agents. These advances offer patients a new personalized and much more effective generation of therapies.”
David M. Goldenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Ukrainian and Polish immigrants. He demonstrated exceptional academic achievement at an early age and was awarded a Ford Foundation Early Entrance Scholarship at the age of 16. After completing his studies in biological sciences at the University of Chicago in 1958, he continued his education in Germany, where he graduated with a doctorate in medicine from the University of Heidelberg in 1966.
After further training in Erlangen, the physician began his academic career in the USA. Among other things, he was Associate Research Professor of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh and Professor of Pathology at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. He founded the Ephraim McDowell Community Cancer Network at the University of Kentucky and the Center for Molecular Medicine and Immunology in New Jersey. He also co-founded the biopharmaceutical company Immunomedics, which developed antibody-based diagnostics and therapeutics for cancer and certain autoimmune diseases.
David M. Goldenberg is the inventor of more than 200 US patents. His role in the development of the active substance “sacituzumab govitecan” (trade name Trodelvy), which is used in the treatment of metastatic and inoperable breast cancer, is particularly noteworthy. David M. Goldenberg has received numerous awards for his research, including the National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award (1985 and 1992) and the Paul Aebersold Award of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (2005).
