Richard Mark White, MD, PhD

I am a physician-scientist who holds a clinical appointment on the Gastrointestinal Oncology Service and a resesarch appointment in the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program. I study basic mechanisms of cancer metastasis, with the aim of turning metastasis into a treatable condition. My laboratory utilizes the zebrafish —  an unusual but increasingly appreciated animal that helps us to understand the genetic changes that allow cancers to grow and metastasize. One of the reasons we use a fish to study cancer is that it allows us to investigate thousands of potential drugs that could be used to treat metastasis in a way that cannot be done in other laboratory settings. Much of my work centers on the markedly aggressive forms of pancreatic cancer and melanoma. These diseases are notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to treat once they have metastasized and are associated with extremely low survival rates. The understanding of  metastasis in these two diseases could have far-reaching implications for the way we think about treating virtually any form of metastatic cancer.