Marc E. Lippman, M.D., a pioneering breast cancer researcher and former chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan and former head of the Medical Breast Cancer section of the National Cancer Institute, was named chairman of the Miller School’s Department of Medicine. As department chair, Lippman will also be chief of medicine at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

At Michigan, Lippman was the John G. Searle Professor and Chair of Internal Medicine and a professor of pharmacology. Before going to Ann Arbor in 2001, Lippman spent 13 years at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he was director of the Vincent T. Lombardi Cancer Research Center and chairman of oncology. He also spent 18 years as a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute. Lippman was a pioneer in studying the role of estrogen in breast cancer and developed the first system that allowed researchers to stimulate cells with estrogen outside the body, a breakthrough that allowed extensive testing of estrogen at the molecular level. He is currently working on a biological marker that could predict which breast tumors will respond to hormone therapy.

Lippman graduated with honors from Cornell University and earned his medical degree at Yale. He rose to the rank of medical director of the U.S. Public Health Service during his time at the National Institutes of Health and reached the rank of captain in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He has lectured throughout the United States and in Israel and Canada, holds five patents, and has authored more than 600 articles, chapters, and books.