Dr. Robert M. Hoffman is a distinguished cancer researcher and biotechnology entrepreneur who has devoted his career to pioneering innovative approaches to cancer treatment and detection. He currently serves as President, Chairman of the Board, and Chief Executive Officer of AntiCancer, Inc., the oldest biotechnology firm in San Diego which he founded in 1984, while also holding a professorship in the Department of Surgery at the University of California, San Diego since 1995. With a strong academic foundation, Dr. Hoffman earned his Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University in 1971 following undergraduate studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo where he received his B.A. in Biology in 1965. His career trajectory spans both academic medicine and entrepreneurial innovation, establishing him as a unique bridge between fundamental cancer research and clinical application.
Dr. Hoffman's groundbreaking discovery of methionine addiction in cancer cells, now known as the Hoffman Effect, represents one of the most significant metabolic insights in oncology with profound therapeutic implications. His seminal 1976 PNAS paper first demonstrated altered methionine metabolism in cancer cells, establishing what remains the only known general metabolic defect in cancer. This pioneering work launched the field of methionine-deprivation cancer therapy, with his research showing that selectively starving cancer cells of methionine while sparing normal cells could effectively eliminate tumors across multiple cancer types. His more recent work has demonstrated that methionine addiction serves as the fundamental basis of cancer malignancy, with excess methionine driving pathological protein modifications that control gene expression through hyper-methylation.
With over 1200 scientific publications to his name, Dr. Hoffman has profoundly influenced the field of cancer research through both his theoretical insights and practical applications. His development of the Patient-Derived Orthotopic Xenografts (PDOX) model has revolutionized personalized cancer treatment, allowing physicians to replicate patient tumor behavior in mice to guide precision therapy decisions. This technology has become the leading mouse model for drug discovery, widely adopted by major pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and academic institutions worldwide. Under Dr. Hoffman's leadership, AntiCancer, Inc. continues to advance methionine restriction therapy toward clinical application, with the promising potential to deliver a universal cancer treatment approach that targets the fundamental metabolic vulnerability common to all cancer types.
