Lewis C. Cantley joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 1992, when he was also appointed Chief of the Division of Signal Transduction in the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Hospital. He graduated summa cum laude from Wesleyan College and earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1975. His postdoctoral research and first faculty appointment were in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Harvard University.

Although Dr. Cantley has made major contributions to numerous fields, he is best known for his discovery of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway, which opened a window on the way biochemical signaling pathways control normal cell growth and how they can trigger the development of cancer when they are defective. Dr. Cantley's discoveries formed the foundation for the elucidation of longevity pathways in the worm C elegans. His work has also enabled researchers to use the genetic blueprints of signaling proteins to predict their cellular targets, with a view to finding new cancer therapies.

Dr. Cantley has received numerous awards in recognition of these achievements. He received the Caledonian Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2002. He has well over 300 publications to his name, including research papers, reviews, and book chapters. Cantley was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2001.