Andrea Califano

Andrea Califano is president of systems biology and head of Biohub New York. Before joining Biohub, he was the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, holding cross-appointments in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Biomedical Informatics, and Medicine. From 2013 to 2023, he served as founding chair of Columbia’s Department of Systems Biology and director of the JP Sulzberger Columbia Genome Center. A native of Italy, Califano earned his doctorate in physics from the University of Florence and completed postdoctoral work at MIT. He began his career at IBM’s TJ Watson Research Center, where he became program director of the Computational Biology Center, co-founded First Genetic Trust Inc. in 2000, and joined Columbia in 2003.

An internationally recognized pioneer in reverse-engineering gene regulatory networks, Califano discovered Master Regulator proteins that drive the transcriptional states of cancer cells across tumor types. His work has led to insights into tumorigenesis and drug response, spurring multiple clinical trials in cancers such as breast, pancreatic, and glioblastoma. He serves on numerous national scientific and editorial boards, including at the MIT Koch Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Califano is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of AAAS, the IEEE, and the American Association for Cancer Research Academy. His honors include two NCI Outstanding Investigator Awards and the 2023 NCI Alfred G. Knudson Award in Cancer Genetics.