Beachy was born in Red Lake, Ontario, Canada, on October 25, 1958.[6] Beachy spent eight of his early years of life in the hills of central Puerto Rico. His father was a pastor of a rural church. He attended a school taught in Spanish during the day and then learned to read and write English once he came home from school. At nine, Beachy and his family returned to their home base of Goshen, Indiana where he began attending public school. At the early age of 16, Beachy headed off to Goshen College which was very close to home. At this time, Beachy still did not know of his love for science. “Unlike many people who knew they were going to be scientists from a very early age, I didn't decide that I would try to become a scientist until fairly late on in college,” he says.[1]
Education
Beachy received his bachelor's degree in natural sciences at Goshen College. Beachy first envisioned himself as a doctor, but after his first year of college, he decided against pursuing that career. He then decided to focus on biological research. He became interested in this field after reading a serialized form of Horace Freeland Judson's book, The Eighth Day of Creation in The New Yorker. "Reading those articles got me excited about molecular biology," says Beachy. After graduating, he decided to take chemistry courses and do more research at the nearby South Bend campus of Indiana University. A year later, he decided to attend graduate school at Stanford University and studied the molecular genetics behind fruit fly development with David Hogness.[1][5] Beachy earned his Ph.D in biochemistry in 1986 at Stanford for research into the UBX protein domain.
Career
After receiving his Ph.D, he began working at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Embryology in Baltimore for two years. After his short time there, he accepted a faculty position at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 2006, Beachy moved from Johns Hopkins to Stanford University's Department of Developmental Biology and its Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.
Research
Philip Beachy made pioneering contributions to the understanding of the Hedgehog signaling pathway, elucidating many of its fundamental roles in development, regeneration, and cancer. Beachy discovered the Hedgehog signaling protein[7], how it is processed and released from cells, and identified its mechanism of signaling in target cells[8][9][10][11][12]. Additionally, Beachy revealed critical roles of Hedgehog signaling in embryonic development[13], uncovering the basis of human birth defects, including holoprosencephaly, the most common human birth defect in early gestation, affecting ~1 in 200 fetuses. He established the concept that morphogens, such as the Hedgehog protein, form extracellular signaling gradients to pattern embryonic tissues[14], and demonstrated the continued importance of Hedgehog signaling in the maintenance and regeneration of adult organs[15][16]. Beachy also pioneered small molecule Hedgehog pathway inhibitors (vismodegib, sonidegib, and glasdegib), leading to FDA approval of three such inhibitors for the treatment of basal cell carcinoma and chronic myelogenous leukemia. Beachy’s research thus illuminated the origin of many human birth defects and directly led to new cancer therapies.
^Chiang, C; Litingtung, Y; Lee, E; Young, K. E.; Corden, J. L.; Westphal, H; Beachy, P. A. (1996). "Cyclopia and defective axial patterning in mice lacking Sonic hedgehog gene function". Nature. 383 (6599): 407–13. Bibcode:1996Natur.383..407C. doi:10.1038/383407a0. PMID8837770. S2CID4339131.
^Berman, D. M.; Karhadkar, S. S.; Maitra, A; Montes De Oca, R; Gerstenblith, M. R.; Briggs, K; Parker, A. R.; Shimada, Y; Eshleman, J. R.; Watkins, D. N.; Beachy, P. A. (2003). "Widespread requirement for Hedgehog ligand stimulation in growth of digestive tract tumours". Nature. 425 (6960): 846–51. Bibcode:2003Natur.425..846B. doi:10.1038/nature01972. PMID14520411. S2CID2877022.
