NEW YORK – Iron Mountain native Paul William Furlow graduated from the Weill Cornell/Rockefeller University/Memorial Sloan-Kettering Tri-Institutional Medical Scientist Training Program at Carnegie Hall in New York City on May 28.

Before completing his medical degree, Dr. Furlow earned a B.S. in physiology from Michigan State University, an M.S. in neurobiology from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in molecular systems biology from The Rockefeller University.

For his doctoral work, performed in the laboratory of Dr. Sohail Tavazoie, Dr. Furlow identified a new biological mechanism that allows certain aggressive cancer cells to survive in the bloodstream as they travel throughout the body in an attempt to start new tumors. This spreading of cancer, known as metastasis, is currently responsible for over 90 percent of all cancer related deaths.

Dr. Furlow found that a novel drug therapy blocking a key protein in the pathway reduced the development of breast cancer tumors in the lung. His work, published in the journal, Nature Cell Biology, holds promise for guiding the design of new cancer treatments.

Dr. Furlow successfully defended his dissertation in September 2012, and returned to Weill Cornell Medical College where he completed his M.D.

He is currently a surgical resident at the Massachusetts General Hospital-a Harvard teaching hospital in Boston.

Dr. Furlow’s parents are Scott and Laurie Furlow of Iron Mountain; and grandmothers, Dee Cowell and Alison Furlow, are both of Iron Mountain.