The 2026 Cartwright Lectures

Benjamin Izar, MD, PhD, is the Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and a member of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. His clinical practice focuses on melanoma and cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Izar’s research investigates interactions between cancer cells and the tumor microenvironment to understand metastatic spread and immunotherapy resistance. By developing single-cell genomics and genome-editing tools, his lab analyzes patient tumors and disease models at unprecedented resolution. Prior to joining Columbia, he completed residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital and postdoctoral fellowships at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Xuebing Wu, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Systems Biology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Wu received a BS and MS in Control Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing and a PhD in Computational and Systems Biology from MIT. Following his PhD training with Professors Phillip Sharp and Christopher Burge and postdoctoral training with Professor David Bartel, Dr. Wu started his own lab at Columbia in November 2018. Dr. Wu has received a number of distinctions including The RNA Society/Scaringe Young Scientist Award, Pew-Stewart Scholars Award, and NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.