Donald S. Coffey, Ph.D., has been dubbed the "Yoda of the prostate cancer research world."  So says the Association for the Cure of Cancer of the Prostate (CaP CURE). 

"Studying prostate cancer for more than 40 years in a small, five-person lab in Baltimore, Donald Coffey, Ph.D., has produced some of the most compelling research and some of the most talented scientists in the field," according to a Coffey profile on the organization’s website.

While Coffey doesn’t look like the venerable Star Wars Jedi master, the tall Virginian with an easy grin and gentle drawl is —like Yoda— an outstanding teacher whose students have gone on to make extraordinary scientific strides.  His own work help demonstrate the importance of an animal model that is now a research standard, and he was a pioneer in the use of computer images to track metastasis.

Coffey’s "non-standard" approach to education includes the use of Rolling Stones recordings, Slinkys™ and wind-up toys to illustrate scientific points. 

A Bristol, Va., native, he attended King College, on the Tennessee side of his state-line-straddling hometown, and in 1957 earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of East Tennessee.  He moved to Baltimore to work for Westinghouse Electric Corp., but his overriding desire was to do cancer research at Johns Hopkins University.  He found a one-year position as a lab director there, took a considerable pay cut, and caught the attention of the lab’s foremost researchers, who encouraged him to return to school.  He received a Ph.D. in physiological chemistry in 1964, continued his work with Hopkins, and was appointed a full professor in 1974.

He is as gifted a researcher as he is a teacher.  Coffey has been a member of the National Prostatic Cancer Task Force, Working Cadre, National Cancer Institute since 1971.  In 1984 he was named its National Chairman.

In 1997 Coffey was named president of the American Association for Cancer Research and he currently holds appointments as a Johns Hopkins medical professor in four areas: Urology, Oncology, Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences.