Rate My Professor Oliver Press

Oliver W. Press, MD, PhD, was a Professor of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington, with joint appointments at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where he served as Chair of Lymphoma Research and held the Dr. Penny E. Petersen Memorial Chair for Lymphoma Research from 2001 to 2016. He earned a BS in Biology from Stanford University in 1973 and both his MD and PhD through the University of Washington Medical Scientist Training Program, entering in 1973, defending his dissertation in 1977, and graduating in 1979. After completing his internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1982, he returned to Seattle as chief resident and oncology fellow, joining the Fred Hutch faculty in 1986 and rising to acting senior vice president and director of the Clinical Research Division from 2013 to 2016.

Press specialized in Medicine with a focus on lymphoma and blood cancers, pioneering radioimmunotherapies that deliver radionuclides to tumors via monoclonal antibodies. He led the first clinical trial of anti-CD20 antibody therapy for B-cell lymphomas in 1987, published as "Monoclonal antibody 1F5 (anti-CD20) serotherapy of human B cell lymphomas" in Blood, and advanced CAR T-cell therapies targeting CD20, with first-in-human trials launching in 2017. His innovations included alpha-emitters for outpatient treatment and pre-targeted radioimmunotherapy to spare healthy tissue, contributing to FDA approvals like ibritumomab tiuxetan and leading trials with superior long-term outcomes when combined with stem cell transplants. Press chaired the National Cancer Institute Lymphoma Steering Committee and the Lymphoma Research Foundation Scientific Advisory Board, shaped national trials, and treated patients at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and UW Medicine. A mentor to 72 trainees, he was associate director of UW's MSTP for 15 years and directed oncology training programs. His awards include the UW Department of Medicine Excellence in Mentorship Award (2016), MSTP Distinguished Alumnus Award, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Research Visionary Champion Award, Seattle Business Magazine Gold Award for Medical Research, and posthumous American Society of Hematology Mentor Award (2017) and John Ultmann Award for Lymphoma Research contributions. With 489 publications and over 27,870 citations, Press's work transformed lymphoma treatment.