George Prendergast is President and CEO of the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research.  Dr. Prendergast is also Professor, Department of Pathology, Anatomy and Cell Biology, Jefferson Medical College, and Co-Leader, Cancer Cell Biology and Signaling Program, Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. With experience in the pharmaceutical industry as well as in academia, Dr. Prendergast is an accomplished cancer researcher recognized for his expertise in cancer biology, signal transduction, and molecular therapeutics. An emergent theme in Dr. Prendergast’s work has been the development of new therapeutics based on modifier genes that strongly affect disease susceptibility and therapeutic response. In his career he has become known as an innovator who has the ability to translate basic research findings toward clinical application, most recently in developing IDO inhibitors as a novel class of drugs to dramatically improve the immune response and therapeutic outcome in cancers treated with chemotherapy, radiotherapy or immunotherapy.  Dr. Prendergast has contributed over 200 peer-reviewed publications in the field of cancer research and he is an inventor or co-inventor on over 40 published or pending US and international patents. From 2010-2018 he served as Editor-in-Chief at Cancer Research, one of the field’s most highly cited journals and the flagship publication of the American Association for Cancer Research.  Dr. Prendergast is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania where he received his BA magna cum laude with Distinction in Biochemistry in 1983. He obtained his MS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University in 1984 and his PhD in Molecular Biology from Princeton University in 1989.