Dr. Anderson is the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School as well as Director of the Lebow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is a Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Research Scientist and American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professor. After graduating from Johns Hopkins Medical School, he trained in internal medicine at John’s Hopkins Hospital, and then completed hematology, medical oncology, and tumor immunology training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Over the last three decades, he has focused his laboratory and clinical research studies on multiple myeloma. He has developed laboratory and animal models of the tumor in it is microenvironment which have allowed for both identification of novel targets and validation of novel targeted therapies, and has then rapidly translated these studies to clinical trials culminating in FDA approval of novel targeted therapies. His paradigm for identifying and validating targets in the tumor cell and its milieu has transformed myeloma therapy and markedly improved patient outcome.
He is the recipient of many scientific and humanitarian awards including: the International Myeloma Workshop Waldenstrom’s Award; the International Myeloma Foundation Robert A. Kyle Lifetime Achievement Award; the American Association for Cancer Research Joseph H. Burchenal Award; the American Society of Hematology William Dameshek Prize; the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars; election to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Colleges of Physicians and of Pathologists (UK); the American Society of Clinical Oncology David A. Karnofsky Award; the Hope Funds for Cancer Research Award of Excellence in Clinical Research; the Ron Burton Humanitarian Award, the Harvard Medical School Warren Alpert Foundation Prize; the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor; the Leonard P. Zakim Patient Advocacy Award; the Samuel Waxman Research Foundation David Workman Memorial Award; and the University of Miami Sylvester Cancer Center Annual Zubrod Memorial Award. He served as President of the International Myeloma Society and is President-Elect of the American Society of Hematology.