Charles Sawyers, MD, is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the inaugural Director of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program (HOPP) at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he is building a program of laboratory-based translational researchers across various clinical disciplines and institutional infrastructure to enhance the application of global genomics tools to clinical trials. His laboratory is currently focused on characterizing signal transduction pathway abnormalities in prostate cancer, with an eye toward translational implications. His earlier research focused on BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase function in chronic myeloid leukemia. His work, and that of colleagues Brain Druker and Novartis, led to the development kinase inhibitor imatinib (Gleevec) as primary therapy for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), and the discovery that imatinib resistance is caused by BCR-ABL kinase domain mutations. This discovery led him to evaluate second generation Abl kinase inhibitors, such as the dual Src/Abl inhibitor dasatinib, which received fast-track approval at the FDA in June 2006 based on his work.

Dr. Sawyer's more recent work in prostate cancer has defined critical signaling pathways for disease initiation and progression through studies in mouse models and human tissues. This preclinical work led to the development of a novel anti-androgen ARN-509, a small-molecule inhibitor discovered in collaboration with UCLA chemist Michael Jung, which targets the increased levels of androgen receptor found in hormone-refractory disease. Dr. Sawyers is past President of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and served on the National Cancer Institute's Board of Scientific Councilors. He has won numerous honors and awards, including the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award, the Dorothy Landon Prize from the American Association of Cancer Research, the David A. Karnofsky Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the 2009 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and in 2010 was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Michael Jung, PhD, has been a member of the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles, since 1974. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and also the Director of the Bioscience Synthetic Chemistry Core facility in the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA. He did postdoctoral work in the lab of Albert Eschenmoser at the ETH in Zürich after serving as a National Science Foundation predoctoral fellow under the direction of Gilbert Stork at Columbia University. He has authored more than 275 original publications and is an inventor on more than 30 issued patents and applications. He has directed the research of more than 250 coworkers during his tenure at UCLA.

Richard Klausner, MD, is the former Executive Director for Global Health of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Between 1995 and 2001, he was the eleventh director of the National Cancer Institute. His research has been recognized with awards including the Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Federation of Clinical Research and the William Damashek Prize for major discoveries in hematology. He received the 1997-1998 Dickson Prize in Medicine and the 1998 Raymond Bourgine Award. He has served as an Advisor to the Presidents of the Academies for Counter-Terrorism, and Liaison to the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a past president of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and has been Chairman of the National Science Education Standards Projects of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ronald M. Evans, PhD, is Professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory and March of Dimes Chair in Molecular and Developmental Biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He is an authority on the role of hormones in health and disease and is responsible for the discovery of a large family of receptors that respond to steroid hormones and are targets for therapeutic intervention in cancer, osteoporosis, asthma, and other significant diseases. He has been involved in the start-up of several biotech companies, and co-founded Ligand Pharmaceuticals and X-Ceptor Therapeutics. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University after receiving a PhD in microbiology and immunology from University of California, Los Angeles, where he also received a BA in bacteriology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He has received a variety of awards and honors, including the 2004 Lasker Medical Research Award in Basic Research.

David J. Mangelsdorf, PhD, has been Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas since 1993. He holds the Beatrice and Miguel Elias Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science. His research is focused on the mechanism of action of nuclear receptors and the characterization of their ligand activities. His work has led to the therapeutic targeting of nuclear receptors for diseases such as atherosclerosis, cholestasis, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. He has been involved in the start-up of several biotech companies, including Ligand Pharmaceuticals and X-Ceptor Therapeutics. He completed postdoctoral studies at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences after receiving a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.