Joan Massagué

Joan Massagué, PhD is the Director of the Sloan Kettering Institute.  He received his PhD degree in Biochemistry from the University of Barcelona. For 23 years he was the Chairman of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program and the Cell Biology Program at Sloan Kettering Institute, and he holds an Alfred P. Sloan Chair.  He was an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1990 until he assumed his current position in 2014.  Dr. Massagué’s research is focused on the mechanisms by which growth factors, signaling pathways and gene expression programs regulate normal cell proliferation as well as cancer metastasis. He elucidated the TGF-beta signaling pathway and the origin of metastasis-initiating cells. Dr. Massagué is a member of the US National Academies of Sciences and of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Molecular Biology Organization, and the Spanish Royal Academies of Medicine and of Pharmacy. He received the Prince of Asturias Prize, BBVA Frontiers Prize, Vilcek Prize, Pasarow Cancer Research Prize, Spain’s National Prize for Research, Charles Rodolphe Brupbacher Prize for Cancer Research, Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award, International Catalonia Prize, and Princess Takamatsu Fund Nakahara Award.