John Hancock, MA, MB, BChir, PhD, ScD

John Hancock, MA, MB, BChir, PhD, ScD, was named executive dean of McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, effective Sept. 1, 2022. He also is the holder of the H. Wayne Hightower Distinguished Professorship in the Medical Sciences, the John S. Dunn Distinguished University Chair in Physiology and Medicine, and serves as executive director of The Brown Foundation Institute for Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (IMM).

Hancock joined the McGovern faculty in 2008 as chair of the Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology, which is ranked sixth nationally in NIH funding, according to the Blue Ridge Institute. In 2012, Hancock became vice dean of research and executive director of the IMM.

A graduate of the University of Cambridge, UK, he trained in internal medicine and hematology/oncology before earning his doctorate at the Institute of Cancer Research, London.

He is a fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians and a member of The Royal College of Physicians (UK).  Prior to joining UTHealth Houston, he served as a research director at Onyx Pharmaceuticals in California and was deputy director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Australia. He also was on the faculty of the University of Queensland as a professor of molecular cell biology and professor of experimental oncology.

He has served on numerous NIH study sections and was the recipient of a UT System STARs award.

Hancock’s research focus involves the basic mechanism of mammalian cell signaling, specifically RAS proteins. Recent novel insights from his research programs have been translated into drug discovery programs aimed at fighting cancer. A prolific publisher, his work has been cited nearly 30,000 times.