Biography

Dr Anderson graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School, trained in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and completed hematology, medical oncology, and tumor immunology training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and serves as chief of the Division of Hematologic Neoplasia, director of the Lebow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center, and vice chair of the Joint Program in Transfusion Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He serves as chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Multiple Myeloma Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee, as a Cancer and Leukemia Group B Principal Investigator, on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the International Myeloma Foundation, on the Board of Directors and as chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, as well as on the Board of Directors and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium. He has published more than 350 original articles, 250 chapters, and has edited multiple textbooks on both multiple myeloma and on transfusion medicine. He is a Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Research Scientist and has had long-term RO-1, PO-1, and Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) National Institutes of Health funding. His numerous awards include the 2001 Charles C. Lund Award of the American Red Cross Blood Services, the 2003 Waldenstrom award for research in plasma cell dyscrasias, the 2004 Johnson & Johnson Focused Giving Award for Setting New Directions in Science and Technology, the 2005 the Robert A. Kyle Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2007 American Association for Cancer Research Joseph H. Burchenal Award for Clinical Research, the 2007 ROFEH Distinguished Service Award for providing compassionate patient care internationally, and a 2007 Champion in Advocacy Award from the American Society of Hematology. He was named editor in chief of Clinical Cancer Research in 2007. In 2008 he received the Dameshek Prize from the American Society of Hematology. Over the last two decades, he has focused his translational research studies on B-cell malignancies, especially multiple myeloma. Highlights of his contributions to science and medicine include: discovery of the first plasma cell reactive monoclonal antibodies; development of an immunophenotyping model for diagnosis and treatment of B-cell malignancies; pioneering novel methods to improve safety and efficacy of autografting and allografting in myeloma; characterizing the signaling cascades whereby cytokines mediate myeloma cell growth, survival, and drug resistance in the bone marrow microenvironment; using oncogenomics and developing in vitro and in vivo models to both identify novel targets and validate therapies targeting the myeloma cell and its bone marrow milieu; translating these preclinical studies to the bedside in derived phase 1-3 clinical trials; and establishing a new treatment paradigm using novel therapies targeting the tumor cell, tumor-host bone marrow interaction, and bone marrow microenvironment to overcome drug resistance and improve patient outcome in myeloma. His team led both preclinical and clinical trials of the novel proteasome inhibitor bortezomib, as well as the immunomodulatory drug lenalidomide, culminating in the rapid FDA approval of these agents for treatment of myeloma. His paradigm for identifying and validating targets in the tumor cell and its milieu has therefore already provided novel therapies which have transformed myeloma therapy and offers great promise to improve patient outcome in hematologic malignancies and solid tumors as well.

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