Mary Beckerle

Mary C. Beckerle, PhD

Mary C. Beckerle is an American cell biologist who studies cancer at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah (U of U). She serves as the CEO of Huntsman Cancer Institute and as the Associate Vice President for Cancer Affairs at the U of U. Beckerle’s research focuses on cell adhesion, cell motility, and cell signaling in normal and cancer cells. She identified a class of proteins that shuttle between cell adhesion sites and cell nuclei and defined a novel molecular pathway for how cells respond to mechanical cues.

Early life

Mary Catherine Beckerle was born in Rivers Edge, New Jersey, to Martin and Mickey Beckerle. She is the oldest of three daughters, with sisters Barbara and Jeanne. Her father worked at the New York Telephone Co. and died suddenly at the age of 36 of emphysema. She was 12 at the time. Her mother, a registered nurse, worked hard to keep the family together. Beckerle’s interests growing up included swimming and participation in Girl Scouts. As a teenager she held jobs in a bakery, in a library, as a lifeguard, and at a Howard Johnson restaurant. Even with all these activities, school always remained her chief focus.

After high school, she attended Wells College, a liberal arts-focused women’s college in upstate New York, where she earned a BA majoring in biology and psychology. She graduated magna cum laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Before continuing her education, Beckerle took a year off and worked in an immunology research laboratory at University of Texas Southwest Medical Center. After this, she attended the University of Colorado Boulder where she earned a PhD in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology. Her education continued at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill as a postdoctoral fellow in cell biology, where she discovered new proteins involved in cell adhesion.

Personal life

While at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Beckerle met David Murrell. She would go on to marry him. The couple shares one son, David, who she describes as “my greatest joy in life.” Since moving to Utah in 1986, Beckerle has taken interest in biking and hiking.

Career

After finishing her postdoctoral research at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Beckerle joined the U of U faculty as an assistant professor of biology. She continued teaching and researching at the U of U and was one of the first professors to move into the Huntsman Cancer Institute building when it opened in 1999. The same year, she was awarded the Ralph E. and Willa T. Main Presidential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research at the U of U.

At Huntsman Cancer Institute, Beckerle has led a research program specializing in cancer cell biology since 2003. In 2006, she was named CEO of Huntsman Cancer Institute. Beckerle was then named the Associate Vice President for Cancer Affairs at the U of U. She holds the Jon M. Huntsman Presidential Endowed Chair at the U of U, where she is also a distinguished professor in the Department of Biology. Beckerle is a recipient of the Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence, the highest faculty accolade at the U of U.

Throughout her career, Beckerle has served on many boards and committees both within Huntsman Cancer Institute and nationally. She has served on the editorial boards of Molecular Biology of the Cell, Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology, and Current Opinions in Cell Biology. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Curie Institute in Paris in 1999. Beckerle later became president of the American Society of Cell Biology in 2006. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008. She was named to the American Association for Cancer Research Science Policy and Legislative Affairs Committee. Beckerle has served in many capacities for the National Institute of Health (NIH), both on task forces and grant review panels, as well as the NIH Advisory Committee to the director from 2007-2010. She has also served as chair of the American Cancer Society Council of Extramural Grants.

Currently, Beckerle serves on the Medical Advisory Board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She previously served on the Boards of Directors of the American Association for Cancer Research and the Coalition for Life Sciences. She has served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the National Center for Biological Sciences at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bangalore and the Mechanobiology Institute of the National University of Singapore.

Beckerle serves on the Boards of Directors of Huntsman Corporation and Johnson & Johnson, where she chairs the Science, Technology, and Sustainability Committee. Beckerle also contributes on numerous National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center External Scientific Advisory Boards, including the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Duke Cancer Center, and Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. In 2008, Beckerle was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017, Beckerle was elected to the American Philosophical Society, among inductees that included President Barack Obama.