Dr Laurie Glimcher joined the Board on 1 September 2017 as an Independent Non-Executive Director and a Scientific and Medical Expert. Laurie is currently Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and is CEO, President and an Attending Physician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In addition to a number of senior leadership positions held at both Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, Laurie has also served as Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and as an Attending Physician at the New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Laurie is a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel Advisory Board of the National Cancer Institute and of the American Asthma Foundation. She is a Non-Executive Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and of the Waters Corporation, where she also serves on their Corporate Governance Committee. Laurie recently decided to step down from the Board of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (BMS) after serving for 20 years on its Board. Laurie has recently been awarded the Kober Medal from the American Association of Physicians for a lifetime of achievements in the field of internal medicine. She has also received the L’Oreal Laureate Award for her discoveries in immunology, and the Marion Fay Spencer award for her scholarship and commitment to the application of sciences to healthcare. She is also a member of the Lasker Award Jury, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Member of the National Academy of Medicine, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology.

Glimcher became interested in immunology during her first year of medical school at Harvard.There she took interest dysregulation in autoimmune diseases and, in her fourth year at Harvard, discovered the protein known as Nk1.1(see natural killer T cell), which soon became widely recognized across the field of immunology. For this discovery, Glimcher became the first woman to receive the Soma Weiss Award, an honor her father had received 26 years earlier. During this time, Glimcher worked with mentor Bill Paul, who strongly encouraged her to continue her research independently after completing medical school. During her second year of residency, Glimcher realized why she felt so drawn to this area of research. “What always fascinated me was not so much treating patients with disease, but figuring out why they had the disease,” says Glimcher. Glimcher currently heads her own lab for research in immunology. She has been interested in studying the ties between ER stress system in neurons and immune function and neuro-degeneration. Her past work has involved regulation of immune function and has shifted towards osteobiology with a focus on the bone disease osteoporosis. Her Harvard lab has a three-year contract with Merck for the drug Fosamax, a treatment for osteoporosis.Glimcher’s more current research looks to answer the question, “how does the immune system and the ER stress system in neurons impact neurodegenerative diseases