Dr. Neel is a Professor of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the former Director of the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center. His research focuses on cellular signaling, with a particular interest in the biology and regulation of protein-tyrosine kinases and protein-tyrosine phosphatases, the role and regulation of the RAS/ERK pathway in pancreas and lung cancer, and the biology of ovarian cancer. He is generally viewed as a co-founder of the protein-tyrosine phosphatase field.

Dr. Neel earned his PhD in viral oncology from The Rockefeller University in 1982 and his MD from Cornell University Medical School in 1983. His graduate work on oncogene (Myc) activation by slowly transforming RNA tumor viruses established the paradigm for oncogenesis by this class of viruses. He previously was the William B. Castle Chair of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Director of Hematology-Oncology Research, and Head of the Cancer Biology Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, and Director of Research at Princess Margaret Cancer Center, Canada Research Chair, Tier 1, and Professor of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Neel has authored more than 270 primary papers and 38 reviews, most in leading journals. His work has been cited over 60,000 times. He is an elected member of the American Association of Physicians, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society of Canada, recipient of the inaugural Gertrude Elion Award of the AACR and the Premier of Ontario Summit Award, and co-founder of Northern Biologics, Navire Pharmaceuticals, Lighthorse Therapeutics, and Aethon Therapeutics.