Lee M. Ellis, MD, FACS, FASCO

Professor Ellis is the Ruben Distinguished Chair in Gastroenterology Cancer Research and professor in the Departments of Surgical Oncology, and Molecular & Cellular Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC). He served as interim chair, Department of Cancer Biology (2008-2012), Director of the Metastasis Research Center (2010-2012), and Director of the Colorectal Cancer (CRC) Translational Research Program (2007-2013) at MDACC.  He is currently Executive Director for Translational Medicine for MDACC’s Global Programs.

Professor Ellis’s laboratory has made several fundamental contributions to the field of cancer research. His group was the first to identify VEGF as an important mediator of CRC angiogenesis and growth. Professor Ellis was the first to hypothesize that mutated Ras could be a resistance marker for EGFR-targeted therapies; this finding was confirmed in clinical studies. The FDA mandated wild-type Ras status for patients with CRC being considered for EGFR antibody therapy.

One unique contribution to the scientific community was the publication of a Comment in Nature in 2012, co-authored with C. Glenn Begley. Ellis and Begley provided insight on the critically important subject of data reproducibility and research integrity. They reported that the vast majority of pre-clinical cancer research studies could not be reproduced. This publication (cited >2,800), along with publications from others, led to a series of changes to enhance the honest reporting of published studies. This report led to a meeting at the NIH with F. Collins, H. Varmus (NCI), and others. He has been senior author on several manuscripts surveying investigators regarding the drivers of data manipulation, falsification, and fabrication.

Professor Ellis serves in leadership roles in the cancer community. He was chair of the ASCO Cancer Research and Nominating Committees, and is a Fellow of ASCO (2014). He is currently a member of the ASCO Board of Directors. He was co-program director of the AACR annual meetings in 2009 and 2011, and has served as course co-director of the Methods in Clinical Cancer Research Workshops in the U.S. and Europe.  Professor Ellis served on a NAS committee that developed recommendations to decrease the regulatory burden of research (2014-2016). Professor Ellis serves as Vice Chair of SWOG, Translational Medicine. He co-chairs the NCI’s National Clinical Trials Network Core Correlative Sciences Committee.  He currently serves on several data safety monitoring committees (including ECOG), and the Scientific Audit Committee of the EORTC (Belgium). Professor Ellis is a Deputy Editor for JAMA Oncology.