Dr. Mikhail Blagosklonny was a distinguished scientist who served as Professor of Oncology and Garman Family Chair in Cell Stress Biology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York. Following his medical and doctoral training at the First Pavlov State Medical University of St. Petersburg, he received a prestigious Fogarty Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health where he conducted groundbreaking research at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Blagosklonny held faculty positions at New York Medical College and the Ordway Research Institute before joining Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center as Professor of Oncology in 2009, where he later became Senior Vice President for Basic Research. His interdisciplinary career uniquely bridged the fields of cancer biology and aging research, establishing him as a thought leader in both domains.
Dr. Blagosklonny's most significant contribution was developing the innovative concept of selectively protecting normal cells during cancer treatment while targeting drug-resistant cancer cells, challenging conventional wisdom in oncology. His seminal 1999 paper introduced the paradigm-shifting approach of exploiting rather than reversing drug resistance, which evolved into a comprehensive framework for cancer therapy through over 290 peer-reviewed publications. He pioneered the field of conceptual biology with his 2002 Nature publication demonstrating how synthesizing knowledge across disparate fields could generate novel scientific insights. Dr. Blagosklonny's research connected the underlying mechanisms of aging with cancer treatment strategies, creating new therapeutic possibilities for both fields.
As a visionary editor, Dr. Blagosklonny founded multiple influential scientific journals including Aging, Oncotarget, and Oncoscience, significantly shaping scientific discourse in cancer and aging research. Despite receiving a terminal lung cancer diagnosis with brain metastases in January 2023, he channeled his personal experience into scientific inquiry, publishing his final work My battle with cancer. Part 1 in early 2024 where he theorized about preemptive combinations of targeted drugs to cure metastatic cancer. His courageous final work continued his lifelong mission to transform cancer treatment paradigms even as he faced his own mortality. Dr. Blagosklonny's intellectual legacy endures through his revolutionary approaches to cancer therapy and his profound insights connecting aging mechanisms with oncology, continuing to inspire researchers worldwide.
