Larry Kwak

Dr. Larry Kwak, M.D., Ph.D., is currently the Vice President and Cancer Center Associate Director, Translational Research & Developmental Therapeutics at City of Hope National Medical Center, as well as the chair of the Scientific Advisory Board at PeproMene Bio, Inc. Dr. Kwak served at the Biology Section, Experimental Transplantation and Immunology Branch, at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for 12 years. His NCI laboratory is credited with the pioneering bench-to-clinic development of a therapeutic cancer vaccine for B-cell malignancies, which was recently reported as positive in a landmark national Phase III clinical trial.

From 2004-2014 Dr. Kwak served as Chairman of the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma and Co-Director of the Center for Cancer Immunology Research at the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, where he also held the Justin Distinguished Chair in Leukemia Research. Under his leadership, his department successfully captured extensive research support, including large team science grants, such as two SPORE grants in Lymphoma and Multiple Myeloma, respectively, from the NCI and a SCOR program project grant awarded by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

A committed physician, scientist, and mentor, his vision is to assemble and lead research teams to integrate basic discoveries from academic laboratories with translational clinical development to first-in-human clinical trials of novel “homegrown” therapeutics, such as next-generation cancer immunotherapies.

In 2010 Dr. Kwak was named to the TIME100, one of the world’s 100 most influential people named by TIME magazine, for his 20-year commitment to the science of cancer immunotherapy. In 2016, he was awarded the Ho-Am Prize in Medicine for his pioneering research in cancer immunotherapy.