Brian Druker

Brian Druker at OHSU led the clinical development of imatinib (Gleevec) for BCR-ABL-positive CML — the first molecularly targeted cancer therapy to demonstrate transformative clinical benefit. Imatinib transformed CML from a typically fatal disease to one where most patients achieve long-term remission. His work created the proof-of-concept for kinase inhibitor therapy that has since been replicated across dozens of cancers with specific driver kinase mutations.