Robert Weinberg, Ph.D.MIT Whitehead Institute
Robert Weinberg, Ph.D. is a pioneer in cancer research who is most widely known for his discoveries of the first human oncogene—a gene that causes normal cells to form tumors—and the first tumor suppressor gene. Weinberg, who received his PhD in biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969, has held research positions at the Weizmann Institute and the Salk Institute. In 1982, Weinberg helped found Whitehead Institute, joined the faculty as a professor of biology at MIT, and published his landmark paper “Mechanism of Activation of a Human Oncogene” in the journal Nature. In 1999, another major paper, “Creation of Human Tumor Cells with Defined Genetic Elements,” was also published in Nature. Dr. Weinberg’s awards include “Scientist of the Year” by Discover magazine (1982), Bristol-Myers Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research (1984), Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, National Medal of Science (1997), Wolf Prize in Medicine (2004), Landon-AACR Prize for Cancer Research (2006), Otto Warburg Medal (2007). Dr. Weinberg serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Novartis and Motorola, among others.
