Paul Talalay, M.D., is the John Jacob Abel Distinguished Service Professor of Pharmacology and Director of the Laboratory for Molecular Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. He also is the founder of The Brassica Chemoprotection Laboratory, which is dedicated to studying edible plants that induce protective enzyme activity in the body and may help prevent cancer development.
Dr. Talalay has devoted his career to cancer research, focusing his efforts on achieving early protection against cell damage. A pioneer in the field of chemoprotective research strategies, Dr. Talalay and his colleagues devised simple cell culture methods for detecting phytochemicals which appear to boost enzymes that detoxify carcinogens in the body. This work led to the isolation of sulforaphane (found in broccoli) as a potent inducer of detoxifying phase 2 enzymes. These findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (1992), attracted worldwide attention as a major breakthrough in understanding the potential link between cruciferous vegetable consumption and reduced cancer risk.
Dr. Talalay has published more than 300 papers in international scientific journals, and he holds one of the first lifetime Professorships of the American Cancer Society. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and the American Philosophical Society, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The M.D.- Ph.D. Student Library at Johns Hopkins University is named in Dr. Talalay's honor.
Dr. Talalay holds a degree in biophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a medical degree from Yale University. He received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Acadia University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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