Max Wicha to be honored at Stanford University

Stanford University School of Medicine alumnus given award acknowledging accomplishments.

The Stanford Medicine Alumni Association (SMAA) has announced that Max S. Wicha, M.D., ‘74, will receive the prestigious J. E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine. He will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford School of Medicine campus on December 9.

“Dr. Wicha has done extraordinary work in cancer research and treatment, and we are thrilled to honor his remarkable accomplishments,” says Lila Hope, Ph.D., ‘99, SMAA president.

Nationally known for his research in the field of breast oncology, Dr. Wicha has been a major leader in the science of cancer stem cells. His lab was part of the team that first discovered stem cells in breast cancer, the first described in any human solid tumor. Subsequently his laboratory identified a number of cancer stem cell markers and developed in vitro and mouse models to isolate and characterize these cells, models which have been widely utilized in the field. His group has subsequently elucidated a number of intrinsic and extrinsic pathways which regulate stem cell self-renewal and cell fate decisions. This work has directly led to development of several clinical trials aimed at targeting breast cancer stem cells. Dr. Wicha is also the founding director of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, a position he held for 27 years.

Dr. Wicha received his bachelor’s degree in biology at State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1974 he received his MD from Stanford University School of Medicine followed by residency at University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics, and an oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. He has won numerous awards including honors from the American Cancer Society and the American Association for Advancement in Science. In 2016, he was awarded an R35- Outstanding Investigator award from the National Cancer Institute to support his research in cancer stem cells.

The J. E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Alumni Achievement Award was first conferred in 1983. The award is named for the former Stanford University president who, in 1953, recommended that the Stanford Medical School be moved from San Francisco to join the main educational and research Stanford campus in Palo Alto, thus leading to a tradition of interdisciplinary collaboration and discovery at Stanford Medicine.

For more information: http://med.stanford.edu/alumni/alumni-community/class-notes.html