Leland Harrison "Lee" Hartwell (born October 30, 1939) is an American former president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.
He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Nurse and Tim Hunt, for their discoveries of protein molecules that control the division (duplication) of cells.
His earliest publications focused on the isolation of temperature sensitive yeast mutants disabled in basic biological processes, including DNA, RNA and protein synthesis.
Hartwell is the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Canary Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing new technologies for the early detection of cancer.
[11] In September 2009, it was announced that Hartwell would join the faculty of Arizona State University as the Virginia G. Piper Chair of Personalized Medicine and co-director of the Biodesign Institute's Center for Sustainable Health with Dr. Michael Birt.