The E. Donnall Thomas lecture: normal and neoplastic stem cells

Dr. Irving Weissman was the honored E. Donnall Thomas lecturer at the Tandem BMT Meetings, held on February 10, 2007, at Keystone, Colorado. Dr. Weissman has been a major player, and has provided us with enormous insight into many areas of biology, dating back to his high school days in Montana. He led an enormously productive career at Stanford University where he has taught us many lessons involving our understanding of lymphocyte homing, stem cell biology, both of the hematopoietic system and other types of stem cells, and also now, about cancer stem cells. Dr. Weissman has made enormous contributions to this burgeoning field that has provided us new insights and new opportunities for treatment strategies. In addition to a very productive laboratory career, he is also currently the director of both the Stem Cell Institute, as well as the Cancer Center at Stanford University. The following text is a modified transcribed version of the presentation made by Dr. Weissman.