Category: News

Ravindra Uppaluri, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Otolaryngology in the Department of Surgery and chief of Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, received a $4.3 million U01 Cancer Moonshot grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) for his project, “Defining Mechanisms of Immunotherapy Resistance in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas.”

An initiative of the NCI, the Cancer Moonshot program seeks to accelerate cancer research, aims to make more therapies available to more patients, while also improving our ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage.

Uppaluri will serve as principal investigator on this project with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s David Barbie, MD, and Robert Haddad, MD. Co-Investigators include James Lederer, PhD, and Ann Marie Egloff, PhD, MPH, both of the Brigham’s Department of Surgery, and Robert Manguso, PhD, of the Broad Institute. The team seeks to understand why many patients with head and neck cancers display resistance to immunotherapy drugs, with the goal of improving treatment response rates for this patient population.

More broadly in his work at the Brigham, Uppaluri works in a close, multidisciplinary fashion with colleagues in medical and radiation oncology and neurosurgery. His clinical interests focus on head and neck malignancies including using minimally invasive transoral and endoscopic approaches. He also leads the Division of Otolaryngology. His research interests focus on basic and translational approaches to improving outcomes for patients with head and neck cancers.

The NCI is the federal government’s principal agency for cancer research and training. The mission of the NIDCR is to improve dental, oral and craniofacial health.

Boston magazine’s 2020 list of “Top Doctors” recognizes 47 Department of Surgery faculty members. Congratulations to the following providers for being recognized as “tops” in their respective fields:

Colon and Rectal Surgery
Ronald Bleday, MD
Christian Corwin, MD
Joel Goldberg, MD

Otolaryngology
Donald Annino, MD

Plastic Surgery
Matthew Carty, MD
Yoon Chun, MD
Charles Hergrueter, MD
Dennis Orgill, MD, PhD
Bohdan Pomahac, MD
Andrea Pusic, MD
Christian Sampson, MD
Simon Talbot, MD

Surgery
Stanley Ashley, MD
Monica Bertagnolli, MD
Katherina Calvillo, MD
Thomas Clancy, MD
Gerard Doherty, MD
Margaret Duggan, MD
Atul Gawande, MD
Mehra Golshan, MD, MBA
Pardon Kenney, MD
Tari King, MD
Sayeed Malek, MD
Francis D. Moore, Jr., MD
Faina Nakhlis, MD
Chandrajit Raut, MD
Esther Rhei, MD
Scott Shikora, MD
Douglas Smink, MD, MPH
Ali Tavakkoli, MD
Ashley Vernon, MD

Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery
Raphael Bueno, MD
Christopher Ducko, MD
Hari Mallidi, MD
Steven Mentzer, MD
Scott Swanson, MD
Jon Wee, MD
Daniel Wiener, MD

Urology
Steven Chang, MD
Adam Kibel, MD
Michael Malone, MD
Michael O’Leary, MD, MPH
Graeme Steele, MD

Vascular Surgery
Michael Belkin, MD
Edwin Gravereaux, MD
Matthew Menard, MD
Charles Ozaki, MD

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This year, the magazine highlighted 1,665 physicians in 66 different specialties as exemplary leaders in their respective fields. To prepare the annual list, Boston magazine partners with Castle Connolly Medical Ltd., a health care research group, and invites physicians and medical leadership of leading hospitals to identify highly skilled, exceptional doctors in the region. Castle Connolly’s physician-led team of researchers rigorously screens the nominated physicians to select those most highly regarded by their peers.

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