Peter M. Howley

Peter Maxwell Howley (born October 9, 1946) is an American pathologist, virologist, and professor at Harvard Medical School. He has been president of the American Society for Virology and the American Society for Investigative Pathology and a co-editor of the Annual Review of Pathology: Mechanisms of Disease.

Biography
Howley was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He graduated in 1968 from Princeton University with an A.B. in chemistry and in 1970 from Rutgers University with an M.M.S. (Master of Medical Science) degree. In 1972 he graduated with an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. From 1972 to 1973 he worked as an intern in pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was a research associate from 1973 to 1975 at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Maryland. In 1977 he was granted board certification in anatomic pathology. At the NCI's Laboratory of Pathology, Howley was from 1975 to 1976 a resident, from 1976 to 1977 a junior staff pathologist, from 1977 to 1979 a senior investigator, and from 1979 to 1984 Chief of the Viral Oncology and Molecular Pathology Section. From 1984 to 1993 he was Chief of the NCI's Laboratory of Tumor Virus Biology. In 1991, Howley became the George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology at Harvard Medical School. He was the president of the American Society for Virology from 1998 to 1999 and the president of the American Society for Investigative Pathology in 2006. By 2009 he was the Shattuck Professor of Pathology.

Howley is considered to be a leader in research on papillomaviruses. Howley and his co-workers created gene maps of many species of papillomaviruses and analyzed their transcription patterns and systems of transcription regulation. The research identified papillomavirus oncogenes and the molecular mechanisms of their damaging effects. This work is considered fundamental for the understanding of the pathogenesis of papillomaviruses at the molecular level.

"His research also involves assessing the roles of the E6AP/UBE3A ubiquitin ligase in human neurogenetic disorders."

Peter M. Howley and David M. Knipe have been co-editors-in-chief, since the 3rd edition, of Fields Virology, a standard work on virology, with 5th edition published in 2006 and 6th edition published in 2013. Howley is also one of the chief editors of The Molecular Basis of Cancer, published by Elsevier. He was a co-editor of the Annual Review of Pathology: Mechanisms of Disease from 2007–2015. He is a member of the editorial board of the ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

He is married with three children.

Peter M. Howley should not be confused with Paul M. Howley, who is a managing director of the vaccine biotechnology firm VAXMED Pty Ltd in Melbourne, Australia.

Awards and honors

 * 1983 — Warner-Lamber/Parke-David Award of the American Society for Experimental Pathology
 * 1986 — Wallace P. Rowe Award of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseasesfor
 * 1997 — Member, American Society for Clinical Investigation
 * 1993 — Member of the National Academy of Sciences
 * 1994 — Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (also awarded to Harald zur Hausen)
 * 1996 — Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
 * 2004 — Rous-Whipple Award of the American Society for Investigative Pathology
 * 2011 — Keynote speaker at the Convocation Ceremony of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
 * 2015 — NCI Outstanding Investigator Award, National Cancer Institute

Selected publications

 * 1980
 * 1981
 * 1982
 * 1985
 * 1986
 * 1989
 * 1990
 * 1991
 * 1991
 * 1992
 * 1995
 * 1997
 * 1999
 * 1999