As Executive Director of the GW Cancer Institute, Dr. Patierno oversees a comprehensive urban oncology center dedicated to advancing multi- and trans-disciplinary cancer research, expanding effective cancer outreach and education, and offering the highest quality of high-technology yet compassionate cancer care to our patients. Central to the mission of the GW Cancer Institute is engaging the local and national challenge of the unequal burden of cancer and eliminating cancer health disparities in Metropolitan Washington DC. For his city-wide leadership in this area Dr. Patierno has received a Distinguished Public Service Award by the Breast Cancer Resource Committee and the Stoddard Community Service Award by Family and Child Services of Washington DC. He Co-Chaired the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Think Tank and National Conference on “The Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial and Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved” and has spoken at many national symposiums and conferences, including the Surgeon General’s National Call to Action Convocation, as an expert in cancer disparities.
Dr. Patierno attended the University of Connecticut where his research on mechanisms of immune suppression earned him the Kappa Psi Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research while earning a B.S. in Pharmacy. He earned his doctoral degree at the Graduate School of Biomedical Science, University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, and the MD Anderson Cancer Institute, where he was awarded the prestigious Rosalie B. Hite Graduate Fellowship in Cancer Research for his work on the genetics of cancer causation. Dr. Patierno moved to the University of Southern California (USC) Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center as an NIH-funded post-doctoral fellow, where he continued to conduct research in molecular and cellular oncology. He then joined The George Washington University Medical Center, in Washington DC, where he is currently Executive Director of the GW Cancer Institute, founding Director of the Molecular and Cellular Oncology Program, Professor of Pharmacology, Genetics and Urology in the School of Medicine and Health Science, and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health in the School of Public Health and Health Services.
Dr. Patierno’s basic science research laboratory has focused on molecular carcinogenesis, where he has made major contributions to our understanding of the role of genetic damage in the balance of cell death and survival. He is internationally recognized as a leading expert in cancer causation and carcinogenesis and his molecular carcinogenesis laboratory has enjoyed uninterrupted funding from the NIH for 19 years, including a new grant to study the role of environmentally-induced asthma and inflammation on lung cancer. In addition, Dr. Patierno’s translational research efforts in lung, prostate, breast and skin cancer have explored mechanisms of development of cancer cell resistance to chemotherapy, and the development of bio-therapeutics that control the metastatic spread of cancer. He has extensive experience in technology transfer and biopharmaceutical development, as his laboratory discovered the anti-cancer activity of a protein that is the subject of ten U.S patents and under commercial development by a bio-pharmaceutical company as a molecularly targeted cancer therapeutic. In 1999, Dr. Patierno received the GWU Distinguished Researcher Award.
Dr. Patierno’s research and grant portfolio also includes population and community-based research in cancer disparities, prevention and control, education and outreach, and survivorship. This includes patient care through a major grant from the National Cancer Institute to establish the DC City-Wide Patient Navigator Research Program (PNRP), to assist African American and Latina women overcome access barriers to cancer health care and evaluate the efficacy of patient navigation. This unique program, unprecedented in
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Washington DC, has linked five unaffiliated Hospitals (including four cancer centers), two community clinic networks and several community advocacy organizations, under the concept of “Network Navigation”. A major supplement to that grant has seeded the establishment of a “Genomics of Cancer Disparities Center” a collaboration of the GWCI with Howard University and the J. Craig Venter Institute. Dr. Patierno’s Prevention and Control, and Education and Outreach teams are also host to a major grant from the Amgen Foundation supporting the GWCI’s Community by Community Cancer Control Campaign (that includes community-based participatory research), as well as a major grant from the Avon Foundation to support a Mobile Mammography Safety Net in Anacostia, the poorest and most medically underserved quadrant of Washington DC. Dr. Patierno’s Cancer Survivorship team is host to a major grant from Pfizer Inc/Pfizer Foundation for the GWCI’s Center for the Advancement of Cancer Survivorship, Navigation and Policy (caSNP). Dr. Patierno also oversees an Institutional Research Grant (IRG) from the American Cancer Society, to fund pilot cancer research awards to young investigators. Collectively Dr. Patierno has served as PI to federal, foundation and corporate grants totaling more than $20 million.
Dr. Patierno is the author of over 100 scientific journal articles and book chapters. He is an accomplished teacher (recipient of the GW Medical Student’s Golden Apple Award for best 2nd Year teacher), principal mentor to 18 Ph.D. graduate students and Program Director to more than 50 additional graduate students, more than 20 postdoctoral fellows and medical residents, and a host of fellows and undergraduates. Dr. Patierno has also successfully mentored a number of young faculty members from their postdoctoral research to independent funding as young faculty members. As founding Director of the GW Molecular and Cellular Oncology Ph.D. Program Dr. Patierno created and led one of the University’s most popular and successful graduate programs. Dr. Patierno also played a key role in the creation and chartering of the GW School of Public Health and Health Services (now fully accredited with more than 600 students) and helped lead a multi-institutional task force that created and launched the GW Institute of BioMedical Sciences, the umbrella institute for GW’s biomedical graduate programs.