J. Michael Bishop

J. Michael Bishop

Dr. J. Michael Bishop (February 22, 1936 – March 20, 2026) was a Nobel Prize winner and Chancellor Emeritus of UCSF, and served as a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Director of the GW Hooper Foundation. A Nobel laureate and one of the world’s foremost medical researchers, Dr. Bishop was an internationally recognized authority on the molecular mechanisms of cancer. After earning a M.D. at Harvard, he pursued an interest in molecular biology. He taught medical and graduate students, served on the editorial boards of major scientific journals and on numerous advisory boards for private foundations and the federal government, and was active in national and local efforts to improve the funding of biomedical research. He was past chair of the National Cancer Advisory Board for the National Cancer Institute.

Bishop was honored with awards for his teaching; was elected to the National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Philosophical Society, and as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1994, he received special recognition as a scholar by being named University Professor by the University of California. His numerous awards included the American Association of Medical Colleges Award for Distinguished Research; the Albert Lasker Award for basic Medical Research; the Armand Hammer Cancer Research Award; the Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Medal; the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor; and the 125th Anniversary Medal from UCSF. In 1989, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with his colleague, Harold Varmus, for their discovery that normal cells contain genes capable of becoming cancer genes.