About 4% of patients with non-small cell lung carcinoma have a chromosomal rearrangement that generates a fusion gene between EML4 ('echinoderm microtubule-associated protein-like 4') and ALK ('anaplastic lymphoma kinase'), which results in constitutive kinase activity that contributes to carcinogenesis and seems to drive the malignant phenotype.
Dr. Guengerich is the author or co-author of over 500 peer-reviewed scientific articles, and a researcher in toxicology working on cytochromes P450, DNA damage and carcinogenesis, and drug metabolism.
From 1966 to 1999, he was the chief of the molecular carcinogenesis laboratory at the National Cancer Institute.
Among his many scientific contributions is the development of the two-stage clonal expansion (TSCE) model of carcinogenesis, also known as the Moolgavkar-Venzon-Knudson (MVK) model, a stochastic cell-level description of carcinogenesis based on Alfred G. Knudson’s two-hit hypothesis.