Lloyd J. Old, M.D., is the Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) New York Branch at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Previously, he was Chairman, Director, and Chief Executive Officer of LICR. He has been associated with the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center since 1958, first as a research fellow. He was appointed Associate Director of research in 1973 of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases and was named the William E. Snee Chair of Cancer Immunology in 1983.
Dr. Old has held numerous leadership positions at Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases including attending immunologist, acting associate director for research planning, and vice president and associate director for scientific development. He has also served as professor of biology and professor of immunology at Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences and as a foreign adjunct professor on the Faculty of Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
Dr. Old is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, New York Academy of Sciences, Reticuloendothelial Society, Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Association of Immunologists, National Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Cancer Immunology, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has also received honorary doctor of medicine degrees from Karolinska Institute, the University of Lausanne, and the University College London. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in biology and holds a medical degree from the University of California School of Medicine San Francisco.
In 2007, Dr. Old received the Charles Rodolphe Brupbacher Cancer Research Award at a prize ceremony during the 8th Charles Rodolphe Brupbacher Symposium held in Zürich, Switzerland. Dr. Old shared this recognition with CRI Scientific Advisory Council Associate Director Dr. Robert Schreiber (Washington University, St Louis, USA), and Dr. Mark Smyth (Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia) for their discoveries in the fields of cancer immunosurveillance and immunotherapy.
Dr. Old joined the CRI board in 1976 and has served as the Director of CRI’s Scientific Advisory Council since 1971. Since 2001, Dr. Old has also served as Director of the Cancer Research Institute/Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Cancer Vaccine Collaborative. In January 2008, he was appointed Director of the Cancer Vaccine Consortium when CRI assumed leadership of that program from the Sabin Vaccine Institute.
A number of Dr. Old’s most noteworthy accomplishments in immunology and tumor immunology are:
– Introduced BCG, the tuberculosis vaccine, into experimental cancer research as a way to stimulate non-specific resistance to tumor growth. BCG is now widely used to treat superficial bladder cancer.
– Discovered the first linkage between the major histocompatability complex (MHC) and a disease state – mouse leukemia- opening the way for the recognition of the importance of the MHC in the immune response.
– Discovered the association between Epstein-Barr Virus and nasopharyngeal cancer.
– Discovered tumor necrosis factor, a cytokine of critical importance in health and disease.
– Discovered the first cell surface antigens distinguishing cells of different lineages, introducing the concept of cell surface differentiation antigens. This discovery led directly to the CD classification and the wide use of cell surface markers to distinguish and classify normal and malignant cells.
– Discovered p53, a critical molecule in the origin of cancer.
– Conducted the most comprehensive dissection of the cell surface of human cancers using monoclonal antibodies, with the identification of an array of cell surface antigens as targets for antibody-based therapies of human cancer. In fact, 13 of the monoclonal antibodies developed in Lloyd’s lab have been licensed and 7 are in clinical trials.
– Established the autologous typing system as the methodology leading to the identification of the first specific human tumor antigens recognized by antibodies and T cells.
– Conducted the most comprehensive analysis of the humoral immune response to human cancer, defining “the cancer immunome,” and identifying a battery of targets for human cancer vaccines.
– Contributed to the resurrection of the cancer immunosurveillance
– Named and discovered several members of the CT (cancer/testis) family of human tumor antigens.