Dr. George D. Demetri is a Professor of Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology in the Department of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, Massachusetts). Dr.Demetri is also the Director of Ludwig Cancer Research at Dana-Farber/Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Demetri received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Harvard, and medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine in 1983. He then went on to an internal medicine residency and chief residency at the University of Washington Hospital in Seattle. He then completed a fellowship in Medical Oncology at the DFCI and Harvard Medical School, where he has served as an Attending Physician since 1989.
Dr. Demetri’s research and clinical interests have focused on the translation of scientific discoveries into targeted drugs for the management of sarcomas as a model for solid tumor research and development. This work has led to the development of the oral drug Gleevec as an effective treatment for the gastrointestinal sarcoma known as GIST, and is continuing with the research leading to the new multi-targeted agent SU11248 for GIST resistant to Gleevec.
A fellow of the American College of Physicians, Dr. Demetri is a member of many professional societies and editorial boards of scientific journals. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Connective Tissue Oncology Society, the chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the Sarcoma Alliance, and a member of the Medical Advisory Board of the Sarcoma Foundation of America. He has been instrumental in raising awareness of issues relating to sarcoma research and care by his activities on the Internet, and he founded a non-profit educational site for sarcoma patients and their families.
He joins Defeat GBM as a clinical trial design expert that will help translate discoveries from the project into trials.