Speaker

George Adrian Calin received both his MD and Ph.D. degrees at “Carol Davila” University of Medicine in Bucharest, Romania. After working in cytogenetics as an undergraduate student with Dr. Dragoș Ștefănescu in Bucharest, he completed a cancer genomics training in Dr. Massimo Negrini’s laboratory at the University of Ferrara, Italy. In 2000 he became a postdoctoral fellow at Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, and while working in Dr. Carlo Croce's laboratory Dr. Calin was the first to discover the link between microRNAs and human cancers, a finding considered as a milestone in microRNA research history.

He is presently a Professor in Translational Molecular Pathology and Leukemia Departments at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and studies the roles of microRNAs and other non-coding RNAs in cancer initiation and progression and in immune disorders, as well as the mechanisms of cancer predisposition linked to non-codingRNAs. Furthermore explores the roles of body fluids miRNAs as potential hormones and biomarkers, as well as new RNA therapeutic options for cancer patients.

In the two decades of science, George trained more than 150 fellows in different stages of their careers, including high school, undergraduate and graduate students, Ph.D. students, postdoctoral fellows, visiting scientists and visiting professors, and Fulbright fellows from all over the world. Simply, he is having fun making discoveries and publishing and, from time to time, getting funded grants!