 Wigler graduated from Princeton University in 1970, majoring in mathematics, and in 1978 received his PhD from Columbia University in microbiology, and has spent the remainder of his career at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL).Beginning in the late 1970s, at Columbia University, Wigler, Richard Axel and Saul Silverstein developed methods for engineering animal cells.These methods are the basis for many discoveries in mammalian genetics, and the means for producing protein therapeutics such as those used to treat heart disease, cancer and strokes.