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Cancer Warrior

Frederick Alt ’71

Major: Biology
Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Children’s Hospital Boston; Charles A. Janeway Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School; Scientific Director of the Immune Disease Institute at Harvard Medical School
Cambridge, Mass.

For more than 30 years, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Frederick Alt has studied how instability within the genome leads to cancer, and he has worked to uncover the cellular mechanisms that normally suppress this process. His discoveries have led to a greater understanding of the ways that cancer develops, and they hold promise for finding ways to control the disease.

“My Brandeis mentors taught me that studying basic cellular processes is one of the best ways to study cancer,” says Alt, who had the opportunity to work in a basic research laboratory during each of his four undergraduate years.

As a graduate student at Stanford in the 1970s, Alt discovered one of the fundamental mechanisms by which cancer cells arise and become resistant to treatment. In the 1980s, he turned his attention also to immunology, investigating how the immune system genetically rearranges itself to recognize and attack virtually any type of foreign invader the body encounters. Today, he continues to focus his work where the fields of cancer and immunology intersect.

“What intrigues me most” he says, “is learning how our cells harness the various mechanisms of genomic rearrangements to make a productive immune system while avoiding the potentially cancer-causing effects that can emerge when these processes go awry.”

And the rest is...

Daniel Braunfeld ’03

Therein lay the origin of his career.

“Professor David Hackett Fischer’s course on America in World War II completely redefined everything I thought about history,” Braunfeld says. “He taught it as real people in real situations, making real choices that made a difference in the world.”

That perspective, combined with learning from Professor Marya Levenson “what it means to be a teacher” sort of sealed his career choice, Braunfeld says. “History, I realized, would enable me to have conversations with teenagers about issues that mattered to them in a way that math could not.”

The rest is, well, history.

Braunfeld taught in California and now is back on the East Coast, teaching history at the Facing History School in Manhattan.

A natural leader

Ralph Martin ’74

Martin is currently managing partner of the Boston office of Bingham McCutchen and managing principal of Bingham Consulting Group. He was elected to a two-year term as chair of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce from 2006 to 2008.

A frequent speaker on legal and corporate governance issues, he is a past winner of the Anti-Defamation League's Civil Rights Award and was named Prosecutor of the Year by the Massachusetts Bar Association in 2002. He received the Brandeis Alumni Achievement Award in 1996.

Leading the intellectual inquiry

Martin Peretz ’59

For his work as a journalist, Peretz has received the Medal of Distinction from the University of Missouri's School of Journalism and the National Magazine Award for Outstanding Achievement in Essays and Criticisms from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Peretz also co-founded thestreet.com, a leading financial media company whose network of Web sites serves as the premier online destination for all areas where money and life intersect, and remains a director. He is chair of the Digital Learning Group, an e-publisher of college textbooks, and also of enews.com, a magazine subscription Web site.

Peretz has received honorary degrees from several universities, including Brandeis. He received the Brandeis Alumni Achievement Award in 2009.