Dr. Louis Weiner is director of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of 49 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the United States. He holds the Francis L. and Charlotte G. Gragnani Chair and is professor of oncology and chair of the Department of Oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center. He also serves as the Director of the MedStar Georgetown Cancer Institute, a cancer service line serving patients in the Washington DC and Baltimore metropolitan areas. He is responsible for the operation and development of the cancer center, including its research, clinical, and educational missions. The clinical mission includes leading the MedStar-Georgetown Cancer Network in the metropolitan Washington area. Weiner is known for his laboratory and clinical research focusing on new therapeutic approaches that mobilize the patient’s immune system to fight cancer using monoclonal antibodies and other modalities of therapy. His current research focuses on identifying and therapeutically exploiting mechanisms employed by malignant cells to combat immune destruction.
Prior to joining Georgetown Lombardi as director in 2008, Weiner served as chairman of the medical oncology department and vice president for translational research at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, and also served as professor in the department of medicine at Temple University School of Medicine. He is an active member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and founded the AACR Cancer Immunology Working Group. He has served as chair of the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors for Clinical Sciences and Epidemiology and as a member of the NCI Clinical Trials Advisory Committee (CTAC). He also served on the NCI’s blue ribbon panel working group on immunotherapy for the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative and the Advisory Panel of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Scientific Research (CSR), which administers NIH research grants. He is recipient of the 2019 AACR Distinguished Public Service Award.
Weiner earned his bachelor degree in biology with honors from the University of Pennsylvania and his MD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. After completing his internship, residency, and service as chief medical resident at the University of Vermont’s Medical Center Hospital, he held clinical and research fellowships in hematology and oncology at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.