Bart Williams

Dr. Bart Williams is Director of the Center for Cancer and Cell Biology and Professor for the Program in Skeletal Disease and Tumor Microenvironment at the Van Andel Research Institute (VARI).

Dr. Williams’ research focuses on understanding how alterations in the Wnt signaling pathway cause human disease. A specific focus of his lab is characterizing the role of Wnt signaling in bone formation during normal development and in the face of some common tumor types (for example, prostate, breast, lung, and renal tumors) that metastasize to and grow in bone. The Williams Lab has developed many valuable genetic models of bone disease including osteoarthritis and fracture repair and is working towards identifying novel genes that play key roles in skeletal development and maintenance of bone mass.

Dr. Williams joined VARI as a Scientific Investigator in July 1999. He became a Professor in 2006 and was named Director of the Center for Cancer and Cell Biology in 2010. Dr. Williams was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health in the laboratory of Dr. Harold Varmus. He received his Ph.D. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he trained with Dr. Tyler Jacks.