Bennett Van Houten, PhD, co-director of the Genome Stability Program at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, and Richard M. Cyert Professor of Molecular Oncology and professor of pharmacology and chemical biology in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, is among the 502 scientists, engineers and innovators elected as a 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow.
Being recognized by AAAS for scientifically and socially distinguished achievements is one of the most distinct honors in the scientific community. A tradition dating back to 1874, election as a AAAS Fellow is a lifetime honor, and all Fellows are expected to maintain the highest standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity.
AAAS honored Van Houten as a fellow for “outstanding contributions to the field of DNA damage and repair, particularly the development of several novel methods for understanding the choreography of the DNA repair processes.” Van Houten and his lab study the formation and repair of DNA damage in nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, paying particular interest to the structure and function of proteins that mediate nucleotide excision repair and the role of oxidative stress in human disease.
