Human Cell Transformation

Johng S. Rhim, MD Associate Director, Center for Prostate Disease Research (CPDR), Research Professor Emeritus, Department of Surgery and Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). Dr. Rhim has served as an associate director, the CPDR and professor of surgery in the department of surgery at the USUHS, in Bethesda, MD, a state–of-art translational research program that studies prostate cancer and prostate disease in the military healthcare system. Working in this capacity since 1999, he has also been a research professor in the department of surgery since 2000. Dr. Rhim spent 12 years as a project director of cancer research at Microbiological Associates, and 20 years as a senior investigator for the National Cancer Institute, both located in Bethesda, MD. He is an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of human cell transformation and his success in the development of cell culture systems has opened this field to the analysis of cellular, molecular and genetic mechanism of actions of chemical carcinogens, oncogenes and radiation.

Earning an MD at Seoul National University College of Medicine in Korea in 1957, Dr. Rhim came to the United States in 1958. He quickly began serving a research fellow at Dr. Albert B. Sabin’s laboratory, the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation in Cincinnati, OH, then worked in the same capacity at Baylor University College of Medicine in Huston, TX, for another two years. A research associate for the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburg and at Louisiana State University School of Medicine thereafter, he subsequently spent two years as a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, from 1964 to 1966. 

Dr. Rhim has also been a longtime adjunctive professor at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC, since 1988. He has also served as an editor for “ Neoplastic Transformation in Human Cell Cultures” numerous timessince 1991 and has contributed more than 320 articles, book chapters, and patented work to his field. He has been cited in numerous issues of Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare and Who’s who in Science and Engineering since 1999.  In recognition of outstanding contributions to his profession and the Marquis Who’s Who community, Dr. Rhim has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement in 2018.