Martin J. Cline is Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

 (UCLA). He did postdoctoral training in hematology

Hematology

Hematology, also spelled haematology , is the branch of biology physiology, internal medicine, pathology, clinical laboratory work, and pediatrics that is concerned with the study of blood, the blood-forming organs, and blood diseases...

-oncology

Oncology

Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with cancer...

 at the University of Utah

University of Utah

The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

 and was at the University of California, San Francisco

University of California, San Francisco

The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...

 before going to UCLA. His research has been in cell biology

Cell biology

Cell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...

, molecular biology

Molecular biology

Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...

 and genetics

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

.

Dr. Cline was the first to successfully transfer a functioning gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

 into a living mouse, creating the first transgenic organism. His research has also pertained to the molecular genetic alterations in cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

, especially in leukemia

Leukemia

Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...

.

In 1980, Dr. Martin Cline conducted a rDNA transfer into the bone marrow cells of two patients with hereditary blood disorders. He did so in direct opposition to National Institute of Health gene therapy guidelines and without the approval of the Institutional Review Board at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where his research was conducted. The ethical concerns that were generated prompted a call for review by a number of organizations – including the National Council of Churches, Synagogue Council of America, and the United States Catholic Conference. Consequently, Dr. Cline was forced to resign his department chairmanship at UCLA and lost several research grants. http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/bioethics/genetics/a0032608.cfm