Dr. Hartwell is President and Director of Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He concurrently serves as Research Professor of Genetics with the American Cancer Society and Professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington.

For most of Dr. Hartwell's career he studied genes that control cell division in yeast and subsequently many of these same genes have been found to control cell division in humans and often to be the site of alteration in cancer.

He is currently involved in national and international project to improve methods for discovering protein biomarkers for cancer. He believes that the most efficient path to reduce mortality from cancer is to improve molecular diagnostics in order to identify individuals at high risk for disease, detect cancer and other disease at an early stage when they can be cured, provide prognostic information and monitor therapeutic response.

Dr. Hartwell has received many national and international scientific awards, including the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Other honors include the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, and the Alfred P. Sloan Award in Cancer Research. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.