Michael Bishop (born 1936) is an American immunologist and virologist renowned for his pioneering research on the genetic basis of cancer. Born in Pennsylvania, Bishop earned his medical degree from Harvard University before pursuing a career in scientific research.

Michael Bishop Quotes

1. “Science now finds itself in paradoxical strife with society: admired but mistrusted; offering hope for the future but creating ambiguous choice; richly supported yet unable to fulfill all its promise; boasting remarkable advances but criticized for not serving more directly the goals of society.”
— J. Michael Bishop

2. “The modern research laboratory can be a large and complicated social organism.”
— J. Michael Bishop

Bishop, along with Harold Varmus, conducted groundbreaking experiments in the 1970s that led to the discovery of proto-oncogenes, normal genes involved in cell growth and differentiation. They demonstrated that certain oncogenes, when mutated or activated, could contribute to the development of cancer.