David Livingston, the Emil Frei Professor of Medicine at the Medical School and chair, Executive Committee for Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, last week was awarded the 1996 Baxter Award for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical Sciences at the annual meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in Washington, D.C.

This award, established in 1981 and funded by the Baxter Foundation, recognizes outstanding clinical or laboratory research conducted by a member of the faculty of a medical school that is a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

"David Livingston has long been one of the nation's premier biomedical researchers," said David Nathan, president of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "It is gratifying to see his contributions recognized by his peers with this prestigious honor."

Livingston's identification of the role of the pRB protein as a molecular growth-controlling pathway is regarded as one of the most important discoveries in cancer research. Its explanation has generated a large and growing field of fundamental research, yielding important discoveries, which have enhanced science's understanding of how cells control their growth and differentiation.

"The Association is proud to honor, with its 1997 leadership awards, three dedicated individuals who have helped to improve the health care of Americans by way of service, research and contributions to medicine and medical science," said AAMC President Jordan J. Cohen.

The author of more than 120 published articles and 16 books, Livingston has served as an educator at the Medical School for more than 20 years. A graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine, Livingston served his internship and residency at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. In 1973, after two years as a senior investigator with the National Cancer Institute, he began his quarter-century associations with both Harvard and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, ultimately rising to director and physician-in-chief at Dana-Farber.