Dr. J. Michael Pierce received his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University Department of Biology, and he completed an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, Dept. of Biochemistry with Dr. Clinton Ballou.  He was appointed an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell Biology, Univ. of Miami Medical School in 1982, and received the 5-year Faculty Research Award from the American Cancer Society in 1988.  After moving to the Univ. of Georgia in 1991, he has received the Distinguished Research Professor award, and serves as the endowed Mudter Professor of Cancer Research.  He is also the Director of the University of Georgia Cancer Center and is Principal Investigator of the National Center for Biomedical Glycomics, an NCI U01 award focusing on cancer glycomarkers, as well as the NIGMS T32 Glycoscience Training Program for Graduate students, the only training program of its kind in the U.S.  He is the Chair of the board of the non-profit East Georgia Cancer Coalition, which focuses on delivering cancer prevention and screening to underserved populations in eastern Georgia.  His research focuses on the application of monoclonal antibody technologies to find glycoprotein targets for cancer therapies.