George D. Demetri, MD, FASCO, Director of the Sarcoma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, was awarded the J.E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine from the Stanford Medicine Alumni Association (SMAA). Dr. Demetri, an alumnus of the Stanford University School of Medicine, Class of 1983, was honored on the Stanford University School of Medicine campus this past month.
George D. Demetri, MD, FASCO
Deval Lashkari, PhD
“Dr. Demetri is a leader in developing targeted therapeutics for cancer and has been pivotal in advancing oncology treatments over the course of his career,” said SMAA President Deval Lashkari, PhD. “We are thrilled to honor his remarkable accomplishments in medicine.”
Dr. Demetri received his MD from Stanford University before completing his internal medicine residency and serving as Chief Resident at the University of Washington, Seattle. He completed his oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Demetri is currently Director of the Sarcoma Center and Senior Vice President for Experimental Therapeutics at Dana-Farber, as well as Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard Medical School.
A Career as a Physician-Scientist
Dr. Demetri’s career as a physician-scientist has been dedicated to developing therapeutics targeting specific oncogenic mechanisms to treat precisely defined subsets of sarcomas and other cancers. He has pioneered the development of multiple FDA-approved targeted cancer therapies, including imatinib—the first effective therapeutic for gastrointestinal stromal tumors as a paradigm of a mutation-driven solid tumor.
“It is an exceptionally meaningful honor to be recognized by the medical school at which I received such support for curiosity-driven investigation in medicine. Stanford Medical School was a wonderful environment in which to train, and I will always be grateful for my education there,” said Dr. Demetri. “I am also grateful for the ability to have taken that training into practical application as a faculty member at Dana-Farber, which has also provided extraordinary support for building our clinical research and development program here to help patients worldwide.”
Dr. Demetri’s previous honors include the David Karnofsky Memorial Award from ASCO in 2020. He has served on the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Board of Directors and is a member and Immediate Past Chair of the AACR Science Policy and Government Affairs Committee.
In a past interview with The ASCO Post, Dr. Demetri remarked on the future of cancer care: “I fully believe we will have the chance to control at least 75% of cancers in the next 10 to 20 years. And I remain completely optimistic that everything we learn in cancer research will give us insights to provide better care in other diseases, like inflammatory diseases and even neurologic disorders. We live in a global community, and the technology allows us to work across borders for the good of patients around the world. We see the scientific and medical advances spread across the world with breathtaking speed. We want to push that as fast as possible because time matters for every patient.”
