Larry W. Kwak, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine
Chairman, Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma
Justin Distinguished Endowed Chair in Leukemia Research
Associate Director, Center for Cancer Immunology Research
The University of Texas
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, Texas

Larry W. Kwak, MD, PhD is professor of medicine and chairman of the department of lymphoma and myeloma, and associate director of the Center for Cancer Immunology Research at The University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he also holds the Justin Distinguished Endowed Chair in Leukemia Research.

Dr Kwak graduated from the 6-year combined BS-MD honors program in medical education from Northwestern University Medical School in 1982, and earned his PhD in tumor cell biology there in 1984. He then completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in medical oncology at Stanford University Medical Center in California.

Prior to his recruitment to MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2004, Dr Kwak served as head of the Vaccine Biology Section, Experimental Transplantation and Immunology Branch, at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for 12 years. His NCI laboratory championed the clinical development of a therapeutic cancer vaccine for B-cell malignancies.

He has received extensive research support and currently serves as principal investigator of a multimillion dollar Specialized Center of Research grant awarded by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and co-principal investigator of an NCI SPORE grant in lymphoma. His vision is to coordinate the efforts to integrate basic discoveries in immunobiology of hematologic malignances with translational clinical development of novel immunologic therapeutics.

A member of many professional advisory boards, Dr Kwak currently sits on the editorial board for the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee for the Food and Drug Administration, and the Scientific Advisory Board for the Lymphoma Research Foundation. In addition, he is a member of the Education Committee for the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Dr Kwak has authored or coauthored more than 120 articles and book chapters, which have been published in journals such as Science, Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature Medicine.