Rick Klausner

Dr. Klausner is currently the Founder, Chief Scientist, and Board Co-Chairman of Altos Labs. He is also the founder and Chairman of Lyell Immunopharma, Inc. He was the founder and Director of Juno Therapeutics and the founder and Director of GRAIL. He is Chairman of Sonoma Biotherapeutics. Co-Founder and Chairman of Lifemine Therapeutics. He is the former Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Opportunity Officer of llumina Corporation. Previously, he was Executive Director for Global Health of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Klausner was appointed by Presidents Clinton and Bush as the eleventh Director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute between 1995 and 2001. Dr. Klausner served as chief of the Cell Biology and Metabolism Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development as well as a past president of the American Society of Clinical Investigation. He has served in senior advisory roles to the US, Norwegian, Qatari and Indian governments.

More specific to his own research accomplishments, Dr. Klausner has provided valuable mechanistic insights into cellular processes such as intracellular trafficking, translation, and protein assembly. He has also contributed to the understanding of post-translational gene regulation mechanisms through his study of iron metabolism. Furthermore, his investigations into the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) protein have led to further classification of the protein's tumor suppressive function in the context of renal cell carcinoma. His discovery of the T Cell zeta chain and hOw T cells are activated was the basic science breakthrough that led to successful cell-based CAR-T cancer therapy. Throughout his career, Dr. Klausner has consistently worked to apply the principles of science and technology to address the global cancer burden.