Leonard A. Zwelling, MD, MBA

Leonard A. Zwelling, MD, MBA, was Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is a board-certified internist and medical oncologist who trained at Duke University Medical Center and the National Cancer Institute.

In 1984, after 9 years as a trainee and senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Zwelling moved his molecular pharmacology laboratory to the University of Texas. He supported that laboratory with grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society for 15 years, publishing over 130 papers and book chapters on the molecular pharmacology of antineoplastic drugs. He then received an M.B.A. from the University of Houston and began a career as a research administrator.

Most recently he was Vice President for Research Administration, overseeing the operations of the institutional research infrastructure. He was the Institutional Official for human subjects research, animal care and use, and grants and contracts, as well as the Research Integrity Officer. He was Co-Director of the M.D. Anderson/UT Health Science Center M.D.-Ph.D. program for 10 years.

Dr. Zwelling served as the chair of the Social Justice Committee and the board of trustees of Congregation Beth Israel, on the executive committee of the activist group, the Metropolitan Organization, and on the legislative committee of the Harris County Healthcare Alliance and Doctors for Change (a group seeking care for the uninsured in Harris County). He is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program. He is an alternate delegate to the Harris County Medical Society’s delegation to the Texas Medical Association.

He has written and lectured widely with many opinion pieces, editorials and letters to the editor in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Houston Chronicle. He writes a blog at www.lenzwelling.blogspot.com with almost 300,000 visits in its first year. He is the author of a soon-to-be-published memoir of his time on Capitol Hill called "Red Kool-Aid, Blue Kool-Aid."