# Max S. Wicha

Source: https://onco.cc/people/max-wicha/  
OnCo record `max-wicha` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Max Wicha identified breast cancer stem cells and made them a therapeutic target.

## Summary

Max S. Wicha is the Madeline and Sidney Forbes Professor of Oncology and Founding Director of the Rogel Cancer Center at the University of Michigan. He is known for identifying breast cancer stem cells and making them a therapeutic target, as co-author of the 2003 paper that isolated tumorigenic breast cancer cells. His selected paper reports the prospective identification of tumorigenic breast cancer cells. He founded Michigan's cancer centre and continues to study stem cell pathways such as IL-6/STAT3 and Notch in triple-negative and hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Role: Madeline and Sidney Forbes Professor of Oncology; Founding Director, Rogel Cancer Center
- Specialisms: Cancer stem cells; Breast cancer; Stem cell targeting

## Sources

- Michigan profile: https://www.rogelcancercenter.org/max-s-wicha-md
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Wicha%20MS%5BAuthor%5D

## Connected records

- cancers: [HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-hr-positive/), [Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)](https://onco.cc/cancers/tnbc/)
- institutions: [University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center](https://onco.cc/institutions/michigan-rogel/)
- pathways: [Epithelial-mesenchymal transition & drug efflux](https://onco.cc/pathways/emt/)
- key papers: [Al-Hajj 2003: prospective identification of tumorigenic breast cancer cells](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-al-hajj-breast-cancer-stem-cells-pnas-2003/)

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