Rate My Professor Oliver Press

Press specialized in Medicine with a focus on lymphoma and blood cancers, pioneering radioimmunotherapies that deliver radionuclides to tumors via monoclonal antibodies. He led the first clinical trial of anti-CD20 antibody therapy for B-cell lymphomas in 1987, published as "Monoclonal antibody 1F5 (anti-CD20) serotherapy of human B cell lymphomas" in Blood, and advanced CAR T-cell therapies targeting CD20, with first-in-human trials launching in 2017. His innovations included alpha-emitters for outpatient treatment and pre-targeted radioimmunotherapy to spare healthy tissue, contributing to FDA approvals like ibritumomab tiuxetan and leading trials with superior long-term outcomes when combined with stem cell transplants. Press chaired the National Cancer Institute Lymphoma Steering Committee and the Lymphoma Research Foundation Scientific Advisory Board, shaped national trials, and treated patients at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and UW Medicine. A mentor to 72 trainees, he was associate director of UW's MSTP for 15 years and directed oncology training programs. His awards include the UW Department of Medicine Excellence in Mentorship Award (2016), MSTP Distinguished Alumnus Award, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Research Visionary Champion Award, Seattle Business Magazine Gold Award for Medical Research, and posthumous American Society of Hematology Mentor Award (2017) and John Ultmann Award for Lymphoma Research contributions. With 489 publications and over 27,870 citations, Press's work transformed lymphoma treatment.