What Matters to Me & Why - Lucy Shapiro

The purpose of What Matters to Me and Why is to encourage reflection within the Stanford community on matters of personal values, beliefs, and motivations in order to better understand the lives and inspirations of those who shape the University.

Lucy Shapiro,  D.K. Ludwig Professor, Department of Developmental Biology
Director, Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine

Lucy Shapiro is a Professor in the Department of Developmental Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine where she holds the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Chair in Cancer Research and is the Director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Pacific Biosciences, Inc. She founded the anti-infectives discovery company, Anacor Pharmaceuticals, and is a member of the Anacor Board of Directors. She has co-founded a second company, Boragen LLC providing novel antifungals for agriculture and the environment. Her studies of the control of the bacterial cell cycle and the establishment of cell fate has yielded fundamental insights into the living cell. A hallmark of Shapiro’s scientific career is her training and mentoring of young scientists. She has inspired an entire generation of microbiologists for which she was recently awarded the Abbott Lifetime Achievement Award. There are now 24 distinguished laboratories that study the integrated circuitry of the bacterial cell, all headed by Shapiro’s trainees. In addition to her passionate dedication to basic research, Shapiro has a keen interest in the impact of her area of science on global issues. In what started as an interest in protection against bioterrorism even before the events of 2001, and evolved into an advisory role in both the Clinton and the Bush Administrations, has become a focus on the threat of emerging infectious diseases. She is a member of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford’s Institute for International Studies and is a frequent public speaker. Concern about increasing levels of antibiotic resistance and the rise of novel infectious agents prompted Shapiro to not only talk about the issue, but to co-found a biotech company that currently has multiple newly designed drugs for infectious agents. Professor Shapiro has been the recipient of multiple honors, including: election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the American Philosophical Society. She was awarded the FASEB Excellence in Science Award, the 2005 Selman Waksman Award from the National Academy of Sciences, the Canadian International 2009 Gairdner Award, the 2009 John Scott Award, the 2012 Horwitz Prize and President Obama awarded her the National Medal of Science in 2012.

The entire 2015 - 2016 lineup is as follows:

November 4: Connie Wolf
January 13: Lucy Shapiro
February 17: Allyson Hobbs
April: TBA
May 4: Sidney and Persis Drell