Research Projects
Curriculum Vitae
As HCI Executive Director:
huntsman cancer institute
institute research
cancer information
press releases
Stephen Prescott, M.D., executive director of Huntsman Cancer Institute, is a leader in studies of the basic mechanisms of human disease. He was a founder and the director of the innovative Eccles Program in Human and Molecular Biology & Genetics at the University of Utah, which has the goal of applying the most modern, sophisticated methods of genetics and molecular biology research to problems of human disease.
Prescott, a native of Texas, received an M.D. degree from Baylor College
of Medicine in 1973, prior to completing his training in internal medicine
at the University of Utah. He then undertook advanced research training
in biochemistry and molecular biology at Washington University School
of Medicine (St. Louis). He returned to the University of Utah and established
a research group that studies how cells communicate with each other -
a process involved in many normal events and in disease. Currently, he
is a professor of internal medicine and holds the H.A. & Edna Benning
Presidential Endowed Chair.
Until recently, Prescott served as a senior editor of the influential
Journal of Biological Chemistry, and he is on the board of the Journal
of Clinical Investigation. He has also served on medical and scientific
advisory committees for the National Institutes of Health, the American
Heart Association, and several universities. He has been elected to membership
in prestigious societies, including the Association of American Physicians,
the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Royal College of
Physicians of Ireland, and the Royal Academy of Medicine in Spain. Among
other awards, he has received the Utah Governor's Medal for Science and
Technology, the Houssay-Braun-Menendez Medal from the Argentine Association
for the Advancement of Science, and the Sol Sherry Prize from the American
Heart Association.
Prescott has worked as a consultant for pharmaceutical and biotechnology
companies in the United States, Europe and Japan, and has served on the
scientific advisory board or board of directors of four biotechnology
companies.