John D. Carpten, Ph.D.

John D. Carpten, Ph.D. is the director of City of Hope’s National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, director of Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope and chief scientific officer. Dr. Carpten also holds the Irell & Manella Cancer Center Director’s Distinguished Chair and the Morgan & Helen Chu Director’s Chair of the Beckman Research Institute. Dr. Carpten provides overall executive leadership and strategic direction for research at City of Hope.

An internationally recognized expert in genome science, Dr. Carpten has deep experience in multiple disciplines, including germline genetics for disease risk and predisposition, somatic cancer genomics, health disparities research, cell biology, functional genomics and precision medicine.

Dr. Carpten is uniquely positioned to help further City of Hope’s critical goal of democratizing cancer care and expanding access to leading-edge research and care for more patients, families and communities. He has been a national leader in health disparities research and has been a tireless advocate and key voice for reaching underserved populations, ending disparities in cancer outcomes and care, and building a more diverse workforce in cancer research. In 2022, President Joe Biden appointed Dr. Carpten as the first African-American chair of the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Advisory Board, a distinguished post that helps set the national cancer research policy agenda.

He joined City of Hope from the University of Southern California (USC), where he was professor and chair of the Department of Translational Genomics at Keck School of Medicine of USC and associate director of the cancer center. Prior to USC, Dr. Carpten served as director of the Division of Integrated Cancer Genomics, and later, deputy director of Basic Research at City of Hope’s Translational Genomics Research Institute.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Carpten completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Human Genome Research Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health) in cancer genetics, where he was later promoted to the tenure track in 2000. Dr. Carpten earned his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1994, with a focus on human genetics. 

• John D. Carpten, Ph.D., City of Hope’s chief scientific officer, Irell & Manella Cancer Center Director’s Distinguished Chair and Morgan & Helen Chu Director’s Chair of the Beckman Research Institute, was named a top diversity leader in U.S. health care by Modern Healthcare magazine, which honors influential U.S. health care executives for their commitment to improving equity and inclusion at their organization and in the overall industry. Read the press release here.
• 2024, Modern Healthcare Top Diversity Leader
• 2022, University of Chicago Simon M. Shubitz Lectureship and Award
• 2022, Tower Cancer Research Foundation Healing Award
• 2021, AACR Fellows of the Academy
• 2018, AACR Minorities in Cancer Research Jane Cooke Wright Lectureship
• 2016, NHGRI Jeffrey M. Trent Lectureship
• 2014, AACR and Susan G. Komen Distinguished Lectureship on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities
• 2006, Science Spectrum Magazine, Trailblazer Award
• 2003, National Medical Association Urology Section Achievement Award
• 2002, National Human Genome Research Institute Mentor Award

• Carpten JD, Faber AL, Horn C, Donoho GP, Briggs SL, Robbins CM, Hostetter G, Boguslawski S, Moses TY, Savage S, Uhlik M, Lin A, Du J, Qian YW, Zeckner DJ, Tucker-Kellogg G, Touchman J, Patel K, Mousses S, Bittner M, Schevitz R, Lai MH, Blanchard KL, Thomas JE. A transforming mutation in the pleckstrin homology domain of AKT1 in cancer. Nature; 448(7152):439-44.
• Craig DW, O'Shaughnessy JA, Kiefer JA, Aldrich J, Sinari S, Moses TM, Wong S, Dinh J, Christoforides A, Blum JL, Aitelli CL, Osborne CR, Izatt T, Kurdoglu A, Baker A, Koeman J, Barbacioru C, Sakarya O, De La Vega FM, Siddiqui A, Hoang L, Billings PR, Salhia B, Tolcher AW, Trent JM, Mousses S, Von Hoff D, Carpten JD. Genome and transcriptome sequencing in prospective metastatic triple-negative breast cancer uncovers therapeutic vulnerabilities. Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; 12(1):104-16.
• Manojlovic Z, Christofferson A, Liang WS, Aldrich J, Washington M, Wong S, Rohrer D, Jewell S, Kittles RA, Derome M, Auclair D, Craig DW, Keats J, Carpten JD. Comprehensive molecular profiling of 718 Multiple Myelomas reveals significant differences in mutation frequencies between African and European descent cases. PLoS Genetics; 13(11):e1007087. PMCID:PMC5699827.
• Bassiouni R, Idowu MO, Gibbs LD, Robila V, Grizzard PJ, Webb MG, Song J, Noriega A, Craig DW, Carpten JD. Spatial transcriptomic analysis of a diverse patient cohort reveals a conserved architecture in triple-negative breast cancer. Cancer Research. 2023 Jan 4;83(1):34-48.