David Virshup, MD

In addition to his role on the Albatroz Board of Advisors, Dr. David Virshup is Director of the Programme in Cancer and Stem Cell Biology (CSCB) and Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School and is jointly appointed as Professor of Pediatrics at Duke University in North Carolina. Dr. Virshup established his first independent laboratory at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where over the course of 17 years he rose to Professor of Pediatrics and Oncological Sciences with an endowed chair as an investigator at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. He moved to Duke-NUS in Singapore in 2007 to help establish CSCB. He has been elected to several honorific societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP). He is board certified in both Pediatrics and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology in the USA. His research has focused on signal transduction, with an emphasis on both Wnt signaling and circadian rhythms. Early work examined the roles of Protein Phosphatase 2A and Casein Kinase 1 play in these processes. In Singapore, studies of phosphorylation of the PERIOD protein lead to the elucidation of the phosphoswitch model controlling circadian clock speed. In addition, his laboratory collaborated to develop a small molecule inhibitor of Wnt secretion, ETC-159, a drug now in human clinical trials. Dr. Virshup received his B.A. magna cum laude from Beloit College, majoring in chemistry. He received his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, followed by clinical residency in Pediatrics and a fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.