Craig B. Thompson, MD
President
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Craig B. Thompson, a renowned cancer researcher and medical oncologist, is the president and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he directs the clinical, research, and training efforts of a staff of more than 11,00. From 2006 until 2010, the year he joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Dr. Thompson was director of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania and associate vice president for cancer services of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, overseeing the work of hundreds of cancer researchers, physicians and faculty. His accomplishments at Penn included establishment of the first proton therapy center in the Mid-Atlantic region and the expansion of Abramson’s translational research effort.

Dr. Thompson’s current research focuses on the role that metabolic changes play in the origin and progression of cancer. He has also done pioneering research on the genes that control programmed cell death (apoptosis) and how the misregulation of such genes can contribute to cancer. In earlier work he contributed to the development of innovative treatments for autoimmune diseases and leukemia.

A Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator from 1993 to 1999, Dr. Thompson is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. He currently serves as chair of the HHMI Medical Advisory Board. He is a board member of the Association of American Cancer Institutes and the American Association for Cancer Research and a member of the Lasker Prize Jury. Dr. Thompson has been a member of the advisory boards of several cancer centers, including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is the holder of a number of patents related to immunotherapy and apoptosis, and is a founder of three biotechnology companies. He attended Dartmouth College and received his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania.