Dr. Bishop is one of the world's foremost medical researchers and an award-winning teacher. He shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Harold Varmus, current president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. They won the award for the discovery of normal genes whose malfunction disposes cells to become cancerous. Their finding is widely credited with sparking a revolution in cancer research.

Dr. Bishop directs the G. W. Hooper Research Foundation at UCSF, which conducts multidisciplinary research on human disease. He maintains an active research lab with a focus on the molecular basis of cancer.

A member of the UCSF faculty since 1968, Dr. Bishop has twice received the campus's Kaiser Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 1994, he was appointed a University Professor, the highest honor UC can bestow on a professor in recognition of superior scholarship and teaching.

Dr. Bishop became Chancellor UCSF in 1998 and during his 11 year tenure guided UCSF through one of its most expansive periods of grown and achievement, which included development from the ground up of a second major campus, establishment of innovative research programs, and record philanthropic support.

His many honors and awards include the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the Armand Hammer Cancer Prize, and the Award for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical Sciences from the American Association of Medical Colleges. Bishop also has been honored with the 2003 National Medal of Science, the nation's highest honor for scientists. He was appointed chair of the National Cancer Advisory Board, by President Bill Clinton.

Dr. Bishop is a member of several professional and honorary societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is coauthor of three books and nearly 400 scientific papers, publications, and reviews.