Lawrence A Loeb

Lawrence A. "Larry" Loeb is an American cancer researcher and genome scientist. He is a professor of pathology and biochemistry at the University of Washington. Loeb is best known for his work on the fidelity of DNA polymerase, and his proposal of the mutator phenotype hypothesis in cancers.

Biography Loeb was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. He enrolled in the City College of New York at age 17, earning his bachelor's degree in 1957. Loeb remained at the University of Washington until his retirement in 2023. His efforts have emphasized the use of molecular biology in ascertaining both the function of healthy cells and in defining differences between normal and malignant cells. Loeb has used such techniques to assess the fidelity of various DNA polymerases and to investigate the effects of environmental and chemical carcinogenesis, as well as mutagenesis induced by metal ions and by oxygen-free radicals. which permits high accuracy high throughput sequencing for the identification of low prevalence mutations.

Loeb was the first to propose the “mutator phenotype” hypothesis of cancers. This hypothesis posits that, because malignant cells exhibit defects in the fidelity of DNA replication, large numbers of mutations accumulate genome wide as they divide during tumor progression. Evidence supporting this hypothesis has subsequently been provided by many different researchers,