David J. Kuter, MD, DPhil

David J. Kuter, MD, DPhil, is Distinguished Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. He previously served as chief of hematology at MGH from 1998 to 2025.

Dr Kuter received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his DPhil in biochemistry while a Rhodes Scholar at Magdalen College in Oxford, UK, before obtaining his medical degree from Harvard Medical School.

He divides his time between the medical education of fellows and medical students, the clinical care of patients with a wide range of hematologic disorders, the basic science investigation into thrombopoietin and megakaryocyte biology, and the clinical research of treatments for immune thrombocytopenia and hemolytic anemia.

His basic science group was one of the laboratories that discovered thrombopoietin, and his clinical research group carried out various seminal studies using thrombopoietic agents in transfusion medicine, chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia, and immune thrombocytopenia.

A member of the American Society of Hematology, Dr Kuter is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Harvard Medical School Irving M. London Teaching Award, the MGH Alfred Kranes Teaching Award, the MGH 2008 and 2010 Douglas Family Foundation Prize for Research, the MGH Jane Green Memorial Prize for Teaching, the American Society of Hematology 2013 Ernest Beutler Lecture and Prize, the MGH 2022 Thomas R. Spitzer Outstanding Clinician Award, the 2023 MacFarlane-Biggs Plenary Lectureship of the British Society of Haematology/British Society for Haemostasis and Thrombosis, the 2023 Dana-Farber/Mass General Brigham Excellence in Teaching Award, and the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis 2025 Victor Blanchette Memorial Plenary Lecture.

Dr Kuter has given more than 700 invited lectures in more than 50 countries, and he has served as a visiting professor in Beijing, Sydney, Tokyo, London, Durham, Little Rock, Tianjin, Melbourne, and New Haven. He has authored or coauthored more than 350 articles published in international peer-reviewed journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and Blood.

“My passion for hematology is based on my belief that scientific concepts can be usually applied at the bedside to provide patients with personalized, attentive care. But when science fails, a compassionate and soothing word may be equally helpful.”