David J. McConkey, PhD, has been appointed Director of the Johns Hopkins Greenberg Bladder Cancer Institute.
The institute was established in 2014 with a $15 million gift from Baltimore-area commercial real estate developer Erwin L. Greenberg and his wife, Stephanie Cooper Greenberg, and a $30 million investment from Johns Hopkins University. Its faculty, which already has drawn $500,000 in research grants, is dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of bladder cancer and improving its treatment.
Dr. McConkey comes to Johns Hopkins after serving as Director of Urological Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. While there, he played a leadership role in MD Anderson’s multidisciplinary bladder cancer research program since its inception in 1998 and served as Co-Principal Investigator of the MD Anderson Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Bladder Cancer, which is now in its third continuous cycle of funding from the National Cancer Institute. He is also Chair for Translational Medicine for the Genitourinary Cancers Committee of the Southwest Oncology Group and has been involved in setting agendas for the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network’s clinical initiatives.
Dr. McConkey earned his PhD in biochemical toxicology from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. He then completed a research fellowship in the Laboratory of Immunobiology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. After his fellowship, Dr. McConkey joined MD Anderson as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cancer Biology and Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. ■
