Following his PhD, Hunter held a fellowship at Christ's College, Cambridge, in Cambridge (1968–1971) and (1973–1975). From 1971 to 1973, he was a postdoctoral research associate of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He was then assistant professor 1975–78, associate professor 1978–82, professor 1982 onwards and since 2008 director of the Salk Institute Cancer Center.[8] He also sits on the Selection Committee for Life Science and Medicine which chooses winners of the Shaw Prize.
Hunter is one of the foremost recognized leaders in the field of cell growth control, growth factor receptors and their signal transduction pathways. He is well known for discovering that tyrosine phosphorylation is a fundamental mechanism for transmembrane-signal transduction in response to growth factor stimulation and that disregulation of such tyrosine phosphorylation, by activated oncogenic protein tyrosine kinases,[5] is a pivotal mechanism utilized in the malignant transformation of cells. His work is important in signaling pathways and their disorders.
Hunter was a founder of Signal Pharmaceuticals.[citation needed]
Awards and honors
He won the Wolf Prize in Medicine in 2005 for "the discovery of protein kinases that phosphorylate tyrosine residues in proteins, critical for the regulation of a wide variety of cellular events, including malignant transformation".[9] He has been granted along with Charles Sawyers and Joseph Schlessinger with the 2014 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Biomedicine category for "carving out the path that led to the development of a new class of successful cancer drugs".
^"The Wolf Prize in Medicine". Archived from the original on 26 February 2009. Retrieved 29 April 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). wolffund.org.il
