About the speaker

Prof Irving Weissman received his MD from Stanford University in 1965. He was a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. H. S. Kaplan’s laboratory, and was appointed a faculty position in the Department of Pathology, Stanford School of Medicine in 1969. He has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Karel Beekhuis Professor of Cancer Biology and Chair of the Immunology Program. In 2002 he became Director of the Stanford Cancer/Stem Cell Institute, which was split into the Stanford Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and the Stanford Cancer Center in 2003. He was Director of both. He stepped down as Cancer Center Director in 2008, but remains Director of the Stem Cell Institute. He is currently Virginia & D. K. Ludwig Professor for Clinical Investigation in Cancer Research, Professor of Developmental Biology and, by courtesy, of Biology.

Prof Weissman is an expert in the fields of hematopoiesis, leukemia, and hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), and most recently, the clonal events leading from HSC to leukemia stem cells. His research also encompasses the phylogeny and developmental biology of the cells that make up the blood-forming and immune systems. He has a laboratory at Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, where he studies the histocompatibility systems in colonial protochordate. In recent years his work has included studying the potential of CD47 as a cancer therapeutic and identifying cancer stem cells from a variety of blood and solid cancers.

Prof Weissman received numerous awards including the Robert Koch Prize and the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science. He is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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