U.S. Medical Advisory Board

Michael A. Caligiuri, MD, is director of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, chief executive officer of Ohio State’s James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, and holder of the John L. Marakas Nationwide Insurance Enterprise Foundation Chair in Cancer Research. He also is a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and the Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics in Ohio State’s College of Medicine. Dr. Caligiuri’s laboratory has evolved to investigate:

- Development and normal role of the body's large granular lymphocytes called natural killer cells so as to exploit their properties to develop effective therapies against cancer and immune deficiency;

- Why organ transplant patients with iatrogenic immune deficiency are highly susceptible to developing lymphoma associated with the Epstein-Barr virus, and to develop a preventive strategy for this disorder. His lab uses a SCID-human mouse model to explore therapies for treating this and other types of lymphoma;

- The molecular basis for the development of acute leukemia. His lab has mouse models of leukemia as well as the world's largest bank of human leukemia cells to study the pathogenesis of acute leukemia, the prognostic significance of molecular defects in acute leukemia, and novel therapies for acute leukemia.

Since 1990, more than 100 students have trained in the Caligiuri laboratory and have received numerous awards for their research. Dr. Caligiuri has designed and conducted many clinical studies for leukemia and lymphoma patients and has more than 400 original publications, abstracts and review articles on immunology or leukemia.

He also is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, and he is an elected Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2007, he was elected as vice president and president-elect of the Association for American Cancer Institutes (AACI), and he served as AACI president through 2011. He chairs the AACR Publications Committee and is a past editor of the journal Blood. Dr. Caligiuri has served on numerous national and international committees, including the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Board of Scientific Advisors; he either chairs or is a member of 12 cancer center advisory boards across the country. In 2010, Dr. Caligiuri was one of four individuals in the country to receive a MERIT award from the National Cancer Institute for his work on immunity and cancer.

Dr. Caligiuri earned his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School in Boston, then completed a fellowship in medical oncology, bone marrow transplantation and immunology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School. He next spent seven years at Roswell Park Cancer Institute as an assistant, associate and full professor before moving to The Ohio State University in 1997.