Martin McMahon

Dr. McMahon was awarded a PhD (1985) from King’s College University of London for studies on interferon action conducted at the ICRF in London and at Stanford University. Mentored by Mike Bishop at UC San Francisco, he received postdoctoral training (1985-91) working on oncoprotein kinases such as v-SRC v-ERBB and RAF. In 1991 he established an independent research lab at the DNAX Research Institute working on RAF protein kinases. He joined the faculty of the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center (1998) where he served as the Efim Guzik Distinguished Professor of Cancer Biology until 2015, when he joined the faculty of the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute. Dr. McMahon’s research focuses on melanoma and lung cancer driven by mutationally-activated RAS or RAF oncoproteins. Dr. McMahon has contributed to numerous philanthropic or government agencies having served as President of the Society for Melanoma Research and the Cancer Molecular Therapeutics Research Association and Chair of the NCI Board of Scientific Counsellors. In 2017 he was awarded the American Skin Association “Leadership in Melanoma Award” and in 2022 the Society for Melanoma Research “Lifetime Achievement Award”.