Laurie H. Glimcher, MD, to Head Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Laurie H. Glimcher, MD, who has been a member of CRI’s Scientific Advisory Council since 2006, will become the next president and CEO of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She will head the cancer research and treatment hospital beginning in January 2017, taking over for Edward J. Benz Jr., MD, who has been the president and CEO since 2000.

Dr. Glimcher is a renowned immunologist, who shared CRI’s 2012 William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic Immunology for her pioneering work that discovered a master regulator of immune cell differentiation. Her findings revolutionized our understanding of immune cell biology and have given scientists important clues into how to intervene therapeutically to achieve the most effective immune responses against diverse threats, including cancer.

She comes to Dana-Farber in a period of excitement and renewed optimism about cancer research, especially with respect to immunology. In January, President Obama launched his National Cancer Moonshot program to end cancer as we know it. Glimcher said in an interview shortly after the announcement that cancer immunotherapy—which empowers your immune system to recognize and attack cancer—will play a big role in putting an end to cancer deaths. “We are at a moment in science with unprecedented potential,” she wrote last month for The Huffington Post.

Dr. Glimcher has lived in New York City and has served as the dean of Weill Cornell Medical College since 2012, but she considers Boston as her home. An alumna of Radcliffe College, Dr. Glimcher received her MD from Harvard Medical School, carried out postdoctoral training at Harvard, and was the Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology at Harvard when she left for Weill Cornell. In her new role, she will once again be a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Congratulations Dr. Glimcher!