Professor Christopher S. Hourigan DM DPhil FRCP is the Director of the new Virginia Tech Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Cancer Research Center in Washington DC.

As an oncologist and physician-scientist he has a central research focus on bringing precision medicine approaches to the care of patients suffering from a rare, highly fatal, form of blood cancer called Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). He chairs the national prospective clinical protocol to validate measurable residual disease testing (MRD) in AML (“MEASURE”, NCT05224661), is co-PI of the FNIH Biomarkers Consortium MRD in AML Project, and co-chair of NGS for the European Leukemia Network AML MRD clinical guidelines.

Dr. Hourigan received medical and research doctorates from Oxford University and completed residency and oncology fellowship training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he was subsequently a practicing physician on the acute leukemia service and faculty member. Prior to joining VT in April 2024, he was a tenured Senior Investigator, co-director of the Myeloid Malignancies Program, and Chief of the Laboratory of Myeloid Malignancies at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Hourigan was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and elected to Alpha Omega Alpha, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and as a Fellow of both the American College of Physicians and the Royal College of Physicians.