UW Health: UW names new chair of oncology, McArdle Laboratory

Contact: Lisa Brunette

(608) 263-5830

MADISON – A long-time professor at UW School of Medicine and Public Health has been chosen as the next chair of the department of oncology and the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research.

Dr. Paul Lambert, who is currently the Howard Temin Professor of oncology, became the chair Sept. 1. The department and lab have the twofold mission of conducting research into the causes and biology of cancer and of training graduate and post-doctoral students in the conduct of such research. Lambert received his B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and his Ph.D. from UW-Madison. He then completed a fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. He has been with UW since 1990, when he returned as an assistant professor.

Lambert is internationally renowned for his work investigating the role of human papillomaviruses in cancer. HPV is one of the most important infectious causes of cancer, particularly cervical and certain head and neck cancers. Currently, he is the principal investigator on three NIH research grants, edits the journal Virology and serves as associate editor of PLOS Pathogen. He has served on many national and international study sections, panels and advisory groups and he has lectured and served as a visiting professor at many institutions.

“The choice of Paul Lambert for this leadership role puts one of the nation’s finest cancer researchers at the helm of a renowned research enterprise,” said Dr. Daniel DiMaio, scientific director of the Yale Cancer Center and Waldemar Von Zedtwitz professor of genetics at Yale. “Paul and I share an interest in the role of viruses in cancer, a topic of long-standing interest to the McArdle Laboratory since the time of Howard Temin. His development and analysis of sophisticated animal models of HPV-driven cancers have revealed many fascinating aspects of carcinogenesis and gained international acclaim”

Dr. Robert Golden, dean of the School of Medicine and Public Health, thanked current chair Dr. Jim Shull for his dedicated leadership and service to the oncology department. Shull served in the position the past five years.