Dr. David Wiest currently serves as Scientific Director of the Research Institute of Fox Chase Cancer Center.   He earned his PhD in immunology from Duke University in 1991 and did his postdoctoral training in Developmental Immunology at the NIH.  He completed his postdoc in 1995. 

Dr. Wiest’s research interests include T lymphocyte development and transformation, especially:

• Molecular basis for specification of the two major T lymphocyte lineages, αβ and γδ
• Regulatory functions of the ribosomal protein Rpl22 in hematopoiesis, lymphoid development, and leukemogenesis
• Using zebrafish to identify disease-causing genes in immunodeficient humans
• Substrate binding domain specific functions of ERK2 in development and cancer

The Wiest lab employs genome wide approaches to gain fundamental insights into the molecular control of the development of T lymphocytes and other hematopoietic cells and then exploits that information to improve the efficacy of cancer treatment. The lab focuses on four main areas. Project 1 seeks to identify the causal mutations responsible for previously unsolved immunodeficiency cases, in collaboration with investigators at the University of California at San Francisco.  Project 2 intends to establish a three-dimensional model of the genome restructuring responsible for specification of γδ lineage T cells, and then to exploit those insights to edit the genomes of γδ lineage T cells a maximize their potency as anti-cancer immune effectors.  Project 3 focuses on how an understudied class of molecular effectors, ribosomal proteins, control normal hematopoiesis and the potential of hematopoietic progenitors for transformation. The goal of Project 4 is to devise novel ways to target the Ras/MAPK pathway, which is activated in 85% of human cancers. They have determined that the ERK2 substrate interaction domains have opposing roles in cancer progression and wish to exploit this insight therapeutically.

Dr. Wiest has earned honors and awards for his work.  Some of these include the American Cancer Society Southeastern Pennsylvania Research Award, the Norman F. Conant Award for Excellence in Research, being named a Cancer Research Institute Fellow, and elected to the Henry Kunkel Society.