Physician-scientist Dr. Dennis Slamon, professor and chief of hematology/oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and director of Clinical and Translational Research at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been elected to the Association of American Physicians (AAP), one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary medical societies.
Founded in 1885, the AAP recognizes physician-scientists who have made outstanding contributions to basic or translational biomedical research and the advancement of academic medicine. Each year, the organization elects no more than 70 physicians whose work has had a significant impact on scientific discovery and patient care.
“I am deeply honored to have been elected to the Association of American Physicians and extremely grateful to my colleagues here at UCLA who have been instrumental in the research efforts that resulted in this honor,” Slamon said. “The amazing collaborative scientific environment within the UCLA Department of Medicine, the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the UCLA Health System has made the translational cancer work I am being acknowledged for a palpable reality and a gratifying career.”
Slamon is widely recognized for his pioneering work in breast cancer research and treatment, including his groundbreaking discovery of the HER2 gene’s role in aggressive forms of breast cancer and his leadership in the development of targeted therapies that have transformed outcomes for patients worldwide.
His research led to the development of trastuzumab (Herceptin), the first therapy designed to target HER2-positive breast cancer, which accounts for 20% of the 1.7 million new breast cancers diagnosed worldwide each year. Since its introduction, trastuzumab and subsequent HER2-targeted therapies have significantly improved survival and changed the standard of care for millions of women diagnosed with the disease. The therapy also helped establish the principle of targeted cancer treatment, opening the door for subsequent targeted oncology drugs such as Erbitux, Tukysa, Nerlynx, Tykerb and Avastin.
Over his more than 40-year career at UCLA, Slamon has received numerous national and international awards, including the 2019 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Sjöberg Prize, the Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, the Karnofsky Award from ASCO, the Jonas E. Salk Award and the American Cancer Society’s Medal of Honor for Clinical Research. In 2025, he was named to the National Academy of Inventors, and earlier this year, recognized as one of Forbes’ 250 Greatest American Inventors.
