Steven Artandi, MD, PhD is the Laurie Kraus Lacob Director of the Stanford Cancer Institute and the Jerome and Daisy Low Gilbert Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Stanford University. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, and MD and PhD degrees from Columbia University. He trained in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and in Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute before joining the Stanford faculty in 2000. Dr. Artandi is an oncologist and cancer biologist whose research work has focused on the role played by the enzyme telomerase in cancer, aging and stem cell function. His work has produced new insights into the origins of cancer, revealing how telomerase endows cells with immortal growth properties and how aspiring cancers circumvent critical bottlenecks encountered during carcinogenesis. He has received a number of awards including an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute and is an elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He serves on the Editorial Boards of the journals Molecular Cancer Research and Stem Cells.