Michael Kastan, M.D., Ph.D.

Michael Kastan, MD, PhD is the William and Jane Shingleton Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology and serves as the Executive Director of the Duke Cancer Institute. Before moving to Duke in 2011, he had been Professor of Oncology, Pediatrics, and Molecular Biology at Johns Hopkins and Chair of Hematology-Oncology and Cancer Center Director at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. His laboratory research concentrates on DNA damage and repair, tumor suppressor genes, and causes of cancer related to genetic predisposition and environmental exposures. His discoveries have made a major impact on our understanding of how cancers develop and how they respond to chemotherapy and radiation therapy. He has received numerous honors for his highly cited work, including election to the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and receiving the AACR-G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to basic cancer research. He has served as Chairman of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute, on the Boards of Directors of the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Association of Cancer Institutes, as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Molecular Cancer Research, and as Editor of the textbook Clinical Oncology.