September 2025 Awards and Accolades

George Poste

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The Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) has named Dr. George Poste, Regents Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, as the recipient of the 2025 Award for Leadership in Personalized Medicine. This award honors his decades-long impact across academia, industry and government in advancing personalized medicine, cancer research, biosecurity, infectious disease preparedness and biomedical policy.

Dr. Poste’s career has been marked by pioneering contributions across multiple fields. He has mapped the clonal diversity of cancer, identified molecular determinants of organ-specific metastasis and advanced innovations in multiOmics profiling of tumors to optimize treatment strategies. He helped design early liposome-based drug delivery systems that paved the way for today’s lipid particulates used in cell and gene therapy as well as vaccine development. As President of R&D at SmithKline Beecham from 1981 to 2000, he led the adoption of large-scale genomics in diagnostics and therapeutics, catalyzing multibillion-dollar investments that defined precision medicine’s central principle: the right molecular test to guide the right treatment for the right patient. In 1991, as co-architect of the UK Biobank, he recognized the importance of archiving biospecimens from large populations for long-term tracking of molecular biomarkers and disease onset.

He has also played a vital role in industry, serving on multiple biotechnology company boards and co-founding Caris Life Sciences in 2008, which has since become a leader in oncology diagnostics, performing multiOmics profiling on more than 900,000 patients and securing the first FDA approval of a comprehensive whole exome/whole transcriptome assay. His work has advanced precision oncology, drug development, molecular diagnostics and biotechnology tools for infectious disease detection and pandemic preparedness, including service on the U.S. Defense Science Board, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense. At the policy level, he has contributed to national discussions on dual-use biotechnology and synthetic biology, particularly concerning risks amplified by AI, while emphasizing safeguards that do not hinder biomedical innovation.

At ASU, Poste built the Biodesign Institute, recruited leading faculty, and launched the Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative. Most recently, he prepared an analysis for ASU leadership on the convergence of life sciences, biomedicine, engineering, and AI, emphasizing opportunities for innovation in research, education, translational science and partnerships with the private sector. Precision health will be central to ASU’s new initiatives, including the School of Medicine and Advanced Medical Engineering and the School of Technology for Public Health.

Dr. Poste will receive the award at the 19th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference, to be held November 13–14, 2025, in Dana Point, California, where he will deliver a lecture on the future of precision health.