Paul A. Marks

Dr. Paul A. Marks is President Emeritus, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (the nation's oldest and largest private institution devoted to cancer prevention, patient care, research, and education). He was its President and CEO for almost 20 years, from 1980 until 1999. Dr. Marks is an academic leader in improving health care and medical education and an imaginative and innovative biomedical scientist whose discoveries have demonstrated translational benefits applied to improved patient care. Dr. Marks has the unique honor of having Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center name an award after him: The Paul Marks Prizes for Cancer Research, which recognizes outstanding young investigators who have made significant contributions to increase the understanding of cancer or improve the treatment of the disease through basic or clinical research.

Dr. Marks' remarkable career in medicine spans over five decades and is marked by extraordinary contributions. Dr. Marks received his A.B. and M.D. degrees from Columbia University and postdoctoral training at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Pasteur Institute. Prior to his tenure at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, he was Professor of Human Genetics and Frode Jensen Professor of Medicine and Vice President for Health Sciences at Columbia University. Prior to that, he was named Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and, ultimately Vice President for Health Sciences, simultaneously assuming responsibilities as Director of the Cancer Research Institute, which he helped found. Parallel to his research and administration careers, Dr. Marks has answered repeated calls to public service at the highest levels, as a member of the President's Biomedical Research Panel (1975-1976), the President's Cancer Panel (1976-1979), the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island in 1979, and most recently serving on an advisory committee to the director of the NIH to help overhaul its intramural research program.

Dr. Marks has published over 350 scientific articles in various scholarly journals. Dr. Marks is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. He is a Fellow of the America Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been the recipient of a number of honors including the Distinguished Achievement Medal of Columbia University; Medal of the Japan Foundation for the Promotion of Cancer Research; Centenary Medal of the Pasteur Institute, honorary degrees from several universities, and the President's National Medal of Science (USA). In addition to his many scientific and academic accomplishments, Dr. Marks is one of the founders of Aton Pharma, a biopharmaceuticals company started in 2001 to develop and commercialize novel therapeutics for cancer and other diseases. The company was acquired by Merck & Co., Inc. in 2004.