Richard A Rifkind

Richard A. Rifkind, M.D., was Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research from 1984 to 2000 and is now its chairman emeritus. Previously, Dr. Rifkind served as Professor of Medicine and of Human Genetics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he led a broad revision of the medical school curriculum designed to increase the students' understanding of the scientific and research bases that underlay the practice of medicine. As Lila Acheson Wallace Member of Sloan-Kettering Institute, he headed a research laboratory focused on the control of gene expression during cellular differentiation, and he has authored some 250 scientific papers, culminating in the development of a new and potent anti-cancer therapeutic agent approved by the FDA and marketed by Merck. Since 2003, he has produced and directed the film documentary The Venetian Dilemma, broadcast and shown in theaters both nationally and internationally, and he is now at work on another documentary, The Lab. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in medicine and health in 1965 and has been a trustee of the Foundation since 1991.