John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD

John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD, is being honored for his outstanding leadership in fostering world-class translational cancer research at Washington University.

DiPersio is credited with building one of the nation’s largest and most pre-eminent programs in bone marrow transplantation and hematologic malignancy care and research.Under his leadershipsince 1994 the program has grown from five faculty in 1994 to 75 in 2012 and increased the number of annual transplants from 25 to more than 400. A strong collaboration with The Genome Institute at Washington University has generated one of the university’s largest translational research programs, serving as a model for applying genomics to characterize leukemia cells and drive treatment strategies. The program has produced hundreds of clinical trials and accrues hundreds of patients annually.

He has similarly transformed translational oncology research at the School since assuming leadership of and consolidating all oncology divisions within the Department of Medicine in the late 1990s. The Division of Oncology is now the department’s largest and conducts diverse basic and translational research.

In his own laboratory, DiPersio is a leader in understanding the mobilization of normal and leukemia cells, in developing preclinical models and treatments for graft vs. host disease and in creating tissue-banking protocols so that cancer patients can be studied genomically. His research has resulted in nearly 250 peer-reviewed publications. He is also known as an outstanding clinician and excellent mentor to the next generation of scientists.

DiPersio earned his bachelor’s degree from Williams College in 1973 and his medical and doctoral degrees from the University of Rochester in 1980. After postdoctoral training at Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital and the University of California, Los Angeles, he served on the faculties of UCLA and the University of Rochester before joining the Washington University faculty in 1994.