"Shapiro is Director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, and is the D. K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research at Stanford University School of Medicine.

She received her Ph.D. at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Shapiro has an extensive and ongoing involvement in public service to the biomedical community. She has served as advisor or consultant to the National Institutes of Health; the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; the Massachusetts General Hospital; the Whitehead Institute at MIT; the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation; the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; and the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. She has served, or is serving, on the Board of Directors of Silicon Graphics, Inc; Glaxo SmithKline; Gen-Probe, Inc; and Anacor Pharmaceuticals,Inc. Shapiro was elected to the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology; and the American Philosophical Society. She was the recipient of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Excellence in Science Award (1994); the the Selman Waksman Award from the National Academy of Sciences (2005); the Hitchcock Professorship, UC Berkeley (2008); the Canada Gairdner International Award (2009); the John Scott Award (2009); and the Abbott Lifetime Achievement Award (2010).