Laurie H. Glimcher, MD, an internationally recognized immunologist, has been named the next president and CEO of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Glimcher is currently the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of the Medical College at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, where she is also Professor of Medicine and Provost for Medical Affairs at Cornell University.
Laurie H. Glimcher, MD
Dr. Glimcher will begin at Dana-Farber in January 2017, and current President Edward J. Benz, Jr, MD, has agreed to remain as President until her arrival. She will also be a Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School.
The Dana-Farber CEO plays an important role across the Harvard University–affiliated health sciences organizations, and Dr. Glimcher will serve as President of Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care, Principal Investigator of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, and Trustee of Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Hospital Cancer Care.
Dr. Glimcher has strong ties to the Harvard medical community. Prior to joining Weill Cornell Medicine, Dr. Glimcher was the Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where she headed one of the top immunology programs in the world. She is widely considered to be one of the world leaders in understanding cellular differentiation pathways in lymphocytes and has made seminal discoveries of key transcription factors that drive lineage commitment and activation in the immune system. Most recently, she has discovered a critical signaling pathway in both tumor cells and in host immune responses, translating her basic discoveries in the control of immune cell differentiation into a new approach to cancer immunotherapy.
Dr. Glimcher received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. Her postdoctoral training was at Harvard and in the Laboratory of Immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and she is board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She is the former President of the American Association of Immunologists.
Dr. Glimcher is also a member of the American Asthma Foundation and Cancer Research Institute Scientific Advisory Boards and served on the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scientific Advisory Boards. She sits on the Board of Trustees of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and is on the Corporate Board of Directors of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Corporation and the Waters Corporation. ■
