9.13.18 – David Van Andel & Dr. Peter Jones – RSVP required

Attendance for this luncheon is limited to Rotary Club of Grand Rapids members and their guests.

Rotary Club of Grand Rapids members that plan on attending must RSVP by Thursday, Sept. 6th.

PLEASE NOTE:  Only those appearing on the RSVP list will be admitted on Sept. 13th.

David Van Andel is Chairman and CEO of Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is also an entrepreneur involved in several other business interests in the natural and life science products industries.

The son of Jay Van Andel, founder of Van Andel Institute and co-founder of Amway Corporation, he is currently a member of Amway’s Board of Directors and serves on its Executive, Governance and Audit committees. Prior to leading Van Andel Institute, he had been in various positions at Amway since 1977 including chief operating officer of Amway’s Pyxis Innovations Business Unit, and was senior vice president–Americas and Europe, overseeing Amway business activities in North America and 22 European and 11 Latin American affiliates.

Van Andel played a prominent role in bringing professional hockey back to Grand Rapids in 1996. He is co-owner and chairman of the Grand Rapids Griffins, an American Hockey League team.

He is active in numerous business, cultural and community organizations including The Right Place Program, the Hope College Board of Trustees and The Economic Club of Grand Rapids.

Van Andel was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He graduated from Hope College in Holland, Michigan, is married and has four children.

Dr. Jones was born in Cape Town, raised and attended college in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and received his Ph.D. from the University of London. He joined the University of Southern California in 1977 and served as Director of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center between 1993 and 2011. He is

currently the Chief Scientific Officer of Van Andel ResearchInstitute (VARI) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His laboratory discovered the effects of 5-azacytidine on cytosine methylation and he first established the link between DNA methylation,

gene expression and differentiation. He pioneered the field of epigenetics, particularly its role in cancer, and helped develop novel therapies for cancer. Dr. Jones is a past president of the American Association for Cancer Research, a Fellow of the AACR Academy, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He has published more than 300 scientific papers and received several honors, including the Outstanding

Investigator Grant from the National CancerInstitute. He and his colleague Dr. Stephen Baylin shared the Kirk A. Landon Award for Basic Cancer Research from the AACR in 2009 and the Medal of Honor from the American Cancer Society in 2011.