Owen Witte received his undergraduate degree from Cornell and his MD from Stanford University where he trained with Irv Weissman. He completed postdoctoral research at MIT in the laboratory of David Baltimore. In 1980 he joined the faculty at UCLA where he presently is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics where he holds the President's Chair in Developmental Immunology, and Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

He has made significant contributions to the understanding of human leukemias and immune disorders. His work includes the discovery of tyrosine kinase activity in the viral ABL gene and the demonstration of the BCR-ABL oncoproteins in Philadelphia chromosome positive human chronic myelogenous leukemia and acute lymphocytic leukemia, and demonstration of their critical role in the pathology of these diseases. His work also lead to the co-discovery of Bruton's tyrosine kinase which is required for normal B-lymphocyte development which when mutated leads to X-linked agammagloblulinemia. This has had practical impact in leading to the development of STI-571 (Gleevec) as an effective treatment for human chronic myelogenous leukemia and defining new pathways and targets for the treatment of immune disorders.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology and was recently elected to the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Witte has received recognition for his research including the Milken Foundation Award in Basic Cancer Research, the Rosenthal Award of the American Association for Cancer Research, the Dameshek Prize of the American Society of Hematology, the Alpert Foundation Prize, and most recently The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's de Villiers International Achievement Award for his work. Dr. Witte currently serves on the editorial boards of Cell, Cancer Cell, Journal of Clinical Investigation and several other journals. He is active with multiple foundations and advisory boards including the Pew Scholars in Biomedical Science, The Damon Runyon Scholars Board, Lasker Award Jury and the Prostate Cancer Foundation Research grants program. Dr. Witte has a long-standing interest in the education of physician scientists, and recently became Director of the UCLA Medical Scientist Training Program that provides combined MD and PhD training for highly selected medical students.