Jonathan Lewis (oncologist) - Research & Scientific Contribution

Research & Scientific Contribution

Over the years, his research lab and interests overlapped with several biotech and large pharmaceutical companies, and he was associated with the development of several successful and innovative cancer drugs. Following his career as a surgeon, Dr. Lewis was recruited to head a biotech startup, and he currently serves as CEO and executive chairman of ZIOPHARM Oncology.

Lewis' work has been involved in better understanding the biology and treatment of several difficult-to-treat cancers and helping to advance the treatment of cancer. This includes the use of one of the first peptides and DNA vaccines with active immunotherapy using T cells to treat cancer, a better understanding of the biology and role of surgery in retroperitoneal sarcoma, the liberal and correct use of re-resection in extremity sarcoma, the development of several novel small molecule cancer drugs, the potential use of vaccines in pancreatic cancer, and to the use of lower-cost small molecule oral drugs globally to treat cancer. He is also involved in policy leadership and innovative cost-effective therapeutic approaches in general and has worked with Harold E. Varmus and Brook Byers to support Arlen Specter with increased biomedical research funding.

Lewis has several hundred publications, which include work in the biology and treatment of sarcoma, the biology and treatment of pancreatic cancer, molecular cancer vaccines, gene therapy and the translation of laboratory findings to the clinic. He has written chapters and sections in 15 major textbooks and has published one book. He has published on a peer-based assistance program for officers of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the effects of 9/11. He has also written on health policy and directed the use of funding in healthcare. His scientific research papers and book chapters are cited in numerous medical journals as well as text books.

Read more about this topic:  Jonathan Lewis (oncologist)

Famous quotes containing the words research, scientific and/or contribution:

    The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a woman want?” [Was will das Weib?]
    Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)

    Experimental work provides the strongest evidence for scientific realism. This is not because we test hypotheses about entities. It is because entities that in principle cannot be ‘observed’ are manipulated to produce a new phenomena
    [sic] and to investigate other aspects of nature.
    Ian Hacking (b. 1936)

    By what a delicate and far-stretched contribution every island is made! What an enterprise of nature thus to lay the foundations of and to build up the future continent, of golden and silver sands and the ruins of forests, with ant-like industry.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)