Adrian Wiestner MD, PhD

Dr. Adrian Wiestner heads the Laboratory of Lymphoid Malignancies, Hematology Branch, NHLBI. Dr. Wiestner earned his M.D. from the University of Basel Medical School in Switzerland in 1992, and a Ph.D. in genetics in 1998. He entered the NHLBI Hematology Fellowship Program in 2000. In September 2004, Dr. Wiestner was appointed as a Tenure Track Investigator and promoted to Senior Investigator in 2013. He leads an integrated clinical and laboratory research program directed to chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). Dr. Wiestner’s goals are to define key pathogenic pathways in these diseases and translate novel agents and treatment strategies into clinical trials.

He formulated and completed a number of clinical trials, most recently investigating the role of kinase inhibitors in the treatment of high-risk CLL. A major contribution of Dr. Wiestner’s laboratory is the delineation of drug induced changes in tumor biology during treatment and the identification of resistance mechanisms and potential predictive markers. Dr. Wiestner is considered one of the world’s experts in CLL and MCL and has published and lectured extensively on the diagnosis, prognostication, and treatment of these currently incurable disease.