Peter Kuhn

Peter Kuhn, Ph.D. University Professor; Dean’s Professor of Biological Sciences, Professor of Biological Sciences, Medicine, Biomedical Engineering, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and Urology; Director, Convergent Science Institute in Cancer (CSI-Cancer)

Peter Kuhn, Ph.D., holds appointments across USC Dornsife, the Keck School of Medicine, and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and is a founding member of the Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience.

A scientist, educator, and entrepreneur with a career-long commitment to personalized medicine and individualized cancer care, Dr. Kuhn brings an unusually broad perspective to cancer research. Trained as a physicist with early research in structural biology at Stanford, he has spent the past two decades at Scripps Research and USC developing disruptive technologies at the interface of physics, computer science, and medicine. His research focuses on the fluid phase of solid tumors understanding how cancer evolves and disseminates through the circulatory system and has produced breakthroughs in circulating tumor cell science now being tested in over 5,000 patients. His team integrates high-content single-cell genomics with deep learning to translate clinical observations into a mechanistic understanding of cancer dynamics, advancing early detection and enabling biologically informed, clinically actionable care.

With over 300 peer-reviewed publications and patents and approximately 30,000 citations, Dr. Kuhn has translated his research into meaningful clinical and commercial impact through technology licensing, co-founding diagnostic and therapeutic companies, and building public-private partnerships. He envisions a future in which cancer screening, diagnosis, and monitoring is as routine as a standard blood test enabling truly personalized care pathways for every patient.