04.2020 | THE SCIENTIST 49CAREER TITLES/AWARDS
Professor, Department of Microbiology, Immunology,
and Molecular Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles
Presidential Chair in Developmental Immunology, University
of California, Los Angeles
Director, Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine
and Stem Cell Research
Association of American Medical Colleges Award for Distinguished
Research in Biomedical Sciences (2016)
American Association for Cancer Research G.H.A. Clowes Memorial
Award in Cancer Research (2015)
Rowley Prize, International Chronic Myeloid Leukemia
Foundation (2014)
Greatest Hits
- Discovered that the Abelson (ABL) tyrosine kinase is
highly active in human leukemias, a finding that led to the
development of imatinib (Gleevec), a therapeutic for chronic
myeloid leukemia and acute lymphocytic leukemia - Identified Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK), an enzyme required
for B-lymphocyte development and function, which enabled the
development of drugs to treat certain leukemias and lymphomas - Helped identify surface antigens and kinases to target for
prostate cancer therapies currently in development
semester, and like many other male college students graduating
at the time, he needed to make a choice: join the military or
continue his education. Full-time students could get deferments
from being drafted as long as they maintained a good academic
record and demonstrated their ability to graduate. “I think that
weighed heavily in my decision to end up applying to medical
school,” Witte says.
Witte’s undergraduate research had focused on the
way antibodies neutralize a bacteria-infecting virus called
bacteriophage f2 (J Immunol, 108:927–36, 1972). This work
was in immunology, a discipline that fell under the umbrella of
medicine at the time, so Witte decided to apply to MD and MD/
PhD programs. Accepted by Stanford University, he packed his
bags and headed to the West Coast. Before that, he says, “I had
never been west of the Mississippi River.”DECIPHERING CANCER’S ORIGINS
When Witte arrived at Stanford in the early 1970s, he initially
planned to work with Henry Kaplan. Kaplan was a radiologist
famous for groundbreaking work that transformed Hodgkin’s
disease, a cancer that originates in the lymphatic system, from
a fatal illness to a treatable one. But after being introduced to
one of Kaplan’s former mentees, Irving Weissman—a young
professor who would go on to become a leading scientist in the
fields of immunology and cancer biology—Witte saw a better
fit. He joined Weissman’s lab while maintaining a relationship
with Kaplan as a co–thesis advisor. “I kind of got the best of
both worlds,” Witte says. “The younger professor energy in the
lab and the more senior professor with a lot of experience and
great [connections].”
In Weissman’s lab, Witte studied retroviruses that cause
cancers in mice. That research led to several important insights
into the viruses’ morphology and the role of their proteins in
processes such as replication and budding, where a virus exits
a cell in an envelope derived from the host’s membrane. Some
of this work contributed to crucial advances years later, when
scientists studying human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
identified proteins that could inhibit proteases; the finding later
served as the foundation for antiretroviral medications for HIV.
“That’s the great beauty of science,” Witte says. “Doing work
because the question is interesting and not necessarily being able
to anticipate when it might actually be useful down the road.”
After earning his medical degree, Witte moved to Boston
to become a medical intern. But it wasn’t long before he