About Michael White

Mike is a discovery biologist with over two decades of R&D leadership experience in industry and academia. He has deep expertise in cell regulation, tumor biology, target discovery, technology development and drug discovery.

Mike transitioned from academia to the pharmaceutical industry in 2016 as CSO for Tumor Biology at Pfizer. There he led a cross-disciplinary group to build an oncology small-molecule pipeline focused on first-in-class therapies that intercept oncogenic signaling networks, modulate tumor/host interactions and promote productive anti-tumor immune responses. These efforts culminated in numerous INDs over a span of five years. Prior, Mike was Professor of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Associate Director of Basic Science for the Harold Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, and inaugural Director of the UTSW Cancer Intervention and Prevention Discovery training program. His appointments include the Hortense and Morton Sanger Professorship in Oncology, the Sherry Wigley Crow Cancer Research Endowed Chair, and the Grant A. Dove Distinguished Chair for Research in Oncology. In 2015, Mike received the inaugural National Institute of Cancer’s Outstanding Investigator Award. He has authored over 150 publications with over 22,000 citations.

Mike completed his postdoctoral training in cancer biology and signal transduction at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in New York. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his B.Sc. (Hons) from the University of Iowa.