Abstract

Dr. Timothy Ley received his BA from Drake University, his MD degree from Washington University Medical School, and performed his internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed fellowships in Hematology and Oncology at the NIH and at Washington University, and jointed the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis in 1986. He now holds the Lewis T. and Rosalind B. Apple Chair in Oncology, is Professor of Medicine and of Genetics at Washington University, and serves as Director of the Stem Cell Biology Section in the Department of Medicine, and Associate Director of The Genome Institute (for Cancer Genomics). Ley is a past president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, past treasurer of the American Association of Physicians, a fellow of AAAS and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Institute of Medicine. He was the 2012 recipient of the E. Donnall Thomas Prize from the American Society of Hematology. He has developed approaches to reactivate fetal hemoglobin synthesis for patients with hemoglobinopathies, defined the role of the perforin/granzyme system for the function of cytotoxic and regulatory T cells, and has performed pioneering studies that have defined the genomics of acute myeloid leukemia. He led the team at Washington University that sequenced the first human cancer genomes. He has written extensively about the physician-scientist career path, and was a key advocate for establishing the extramural Loan Repayment Programs at the NIH . He has mentored more than 50 pre- and post-doctoral fellows in his laboratory; most hold research positions in academic medicine or pharmaceutical companies.