Michele Cleary

CEO at Mark Foundation for Cancer Research

Speaker

Michele Cleary joined The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research as Chief Executive Officer in January 2017. Since that time, she has recruited a high performance scientific and administrative team and built a global research portfolio of over $80 million in grants and early-stage investments. Prior to her role at The Mark Foundation, Michele was Vice President at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). At BMS, she led early clinical and translational research teams using cutting-edge technologies to accelerate drug discovery and development for cancer and other diseases. Before joining BMS, Michele held several senior level positions at Merck & Co., Inc. overseeing the development and application of innovative platforms aimed at understanding molecular mechanisms of cancer, identifying new therapeutic approaches for multiple diseases, and functionally validating novel drug targets identified through human genetics. At Merck, her research teams also conducted pioneering work using genetic screens for new drug targets and biomarkers in cancer.

Michele is co-author of more than 50 primary research papers and co-inventor on multiple patents for new technologies with direct application to drug development. Michele received a PhD in Molecular Microbiology and Genetics from Stony Brook University and completed graduate research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory followed by postdoctoral training at Princeton University.