Bio
Philip Pizzo, MD, is the David and Susan Heckerman Professor and Founding Director of the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute. Pizzo served as Dean of the Stanford School of Medicine from April 2001 to December 1, 2012, where he was also the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Professor of Pediatrics and of Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Pizzo has devoted much of his distinguished medical career to the diagnosis, management, prevention and treatment of childhood cancers and the infectious complications that occur in children whose immune systems are compromised by cancer and AIDS. He has also been a leader in academic medicine, championing programs and policies to improve the future of science, education and healthcare in the US and beyond.
Pizzo received his MD degree with Honors and Distinction in Research from the University of Rochester in 1970, and completed an internship and residency at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, a teaching fellowship at Harvard Medical School, and a clinical and research fellowship in pediatric oncology at the National Cancer Institute. Pizzo served as head of the Institute’s infectious disease section, chief of the NCI’s pediatric department, and acting scientific director for NCI’s Division of Clinical Sciences between 1973 and 1996. Before joining Stanford in 2001, he was the physician-in-chief of Children’s Hospital in Boston and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, where he was also the Thomas Morgan Rotch Professor of Pediatrics.
Dr. Pizzo is the author of more than 615 scientific articles and 16 books and monographs, including Principles and Practice of Pediatric Oncology, the Seventh Edition of which was published in 2015.
Pizzo has received numerous awards and honors, among them the Public Health Service Outstanding Service Medal in 1995, the Barbara Bohen Pfiefer Award for Scientific Excellence in 1991, the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Award in 2008, the Ronald McDonald Charities “Award of Excellence” in 2009, and the John and Emma Bonica Public Service Award in 2013. He is the 2012 recipient of the John Howland Award, the highest honor for lifetime achievement bestowed by the American Pediatric Society. He has been elected to a number of prestigious organizations and societies, including the Association of American Physicians, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the American Pediatric Society and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, where he was also elected to the Governing Council. The IOM became the National Academy of Medicine in 2015. He has served as Chair of the Association of Academic Health Centers and Chair of the Council of Deans of the Association of American Medical Colleges, and was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Society for Clinical Oncology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He was President of the International Immunocompromised Host Society (1998-2011). He served on the Governing Board for the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine from 2004-2012. In 2009 he was elected to the Board of Trustees of the University of Rochester and the Board of Overseers of Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey. He was a member of the Board of Directors of MRI Interventions (2013-2017) and the Academic Advisory Council for Merritt Hawkins (2015-present). In 2014 he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and in 2015 he was elected to the Board of Directors of Global Blood Therapeutics. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Current Opinion in Pediatrics.
