Michael A. White

Dr. White is a discovery biologist with two decades of R&D leadership experience in industry and academia. He has deep expertise in cell regulation, tissue homeostasis, tumor biology, therapeutic target discovery, technology development and drug discovery.

Prior to joining Samumed, Dr. White was Chief Scientific Officer for Tumor Biology at Pfizer. There he led a cross-disciplinary group to build an oncology small-molecule pipeline focused on first-in-class therapies that intercept oncogenic signaling networks, modulate tumor/host interactions and promote productive anti-tumor immune responses. These efforts culminated in numerous INDs within the past four years. Previously, Dr. White held positions of Professor of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Associate Director of Basic Science for the Harold Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, and inaugural Director of the UTSW Cancer Intervention and Prevention Discovery training program. His appointments include the Hortense and Morton Sanger Professorship in Oncology, the Sherry Wigley Crow Cancer Research Endowed Chair, and the Grant A. Dove Distinguished Chair for Research in Oncology. In 2015, Dr. White received the inaugural National Institute of Cancer’s Outstanding Investigator Award.

Dr. White’s research has focused on oncogenic Ras effector networks, the molecular architecture of mitogenic signaling pathways, functional annotation of cancer genomes and genomics-guided cancer target discovery. He has authored over 150 publications with over 22,000 citations.

Dr. White completed his postdoctoral training in cancer biology and signal transduction at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in New York. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his B.S. in Zoology from University of Iowa.