Craig Thompson: The method to cancer's madness

C ancer cells proliferate with abandon and in defi ance of the restrictions usually placed on dividing cells. How do cancer cells—or normal dividing cells, for that matter—fuel rampant growth? That's a question Craig Thompson is bent on answering. Thompson trained in research while serving as an MD in the US Navy (1). Though he never went to sea, he has made waves throughout his career—fi rst as an immunologist with his work on the T cell– specifi c signaling receptor CD28 (2, 3), then with his lab's efforts to characterize the mechanisms by which Bcl-2 family members regulate apoptosis (3, 4), and now in the fi eld of cancer biology investigating the metabolic requirements of dividing cells (5, 6). Along the way, Thompson has taken the helm of research institutes at the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania, and is now transitioning to president and CEO at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. We caught him fresh off the train from a visit to his lab's future site to talk about the currents he's followed in his career. What did you want to be when you were a kid? I never really thought about it. My father was a career Coast Guard offi cer, which meant I grew up all over the country. One thing you do when you're a military brat is that every time you move, you have to make new friends and integrate yourself into the community. My way to do that was to play sports. What sports did you play? I played soccer and basketball in high school. I was able to go to college because I was recruited to play sports. Some schools recruited me to play soccer, but I went to Dartmouth to join their whitewater kayaking team. I got my varsity letter in whitewater kayaking, and I tried out for both the national and Olympic teams, but I didn't make either. What did you study in college? During school I took science courses. They were the easiest things to get good grades in, because I liked them. In fact, I had a huge falling out with the soccer coach at Dartmouth because I wouldn't give up my lab courses, which he thought were hurting my soccer career. So I quit the soccer team, took the lab courses and realized that I might like to become a scientist. The only …