Dr. Diasio

Message from the Director

These are exciting times for cancer research and for Mayo Clinic Cancer Center. More than ever before, we are making strides in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cancer. A case in point, we are learning how we can personalize medicine to achieve the best results for each and every patient that walks through our doors. Our researchers work on the cutting edge of science, every day striving to move ideas to possibilities and knowledge gained at “the bench” to treatments available at “the bedside.”

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center is a continuously evolving organization. We learn, from the thousands of cancer patients we see each year, how to better understand both common and rare cancers, even the most subtle differences. Our patients teach us how to improve care delivery, and enable us to teach others the same. We are finding more effective treatments and ways to improve quality of life in all stages of treatment and disease progression, and every day strive to alleviate the pain, debilitation and death caused by cancer.

I am excited to be at the helm of a comprehensive cancer center made up of so many talented and dedicated people. My goal for the Center is the same as its goal has always been, to improve the care to our patients by providing excellent medical and surgical care for cancer patients, while offering them the very best and most novel approaches to treating cancer. We will continue to conduct cutting-edge research to develop and refine these novel approaches and improve our understanding of cancer, and all the while, training young researchers and clinicians to carry on for future generations.

Robert B. Diasio, M.D.
Director
Mayo Clinic Cancer Center

WORKING TOGETHER

The physicians, the nurses, the laboratory technicians, the scientists, the statisticians and all the people who make up Mayo Clinic Cancer Center know the suffering that cancer can bring.

We are committed to working together with other cancer centers, government agencies and nongovernment agencies within the United States and around the world to relieve the burden of cancer for all people everywhere. We invite you to join with us – to make your own commitment to fight and conquer cancer.

CANCER CENTER LEADERSHIP

• Director — Robert B. Diasio, M.D.
• Deputy Director, Jacksonville — Edith Perez, M.D.
• Deputy Director, Scottsdale — Rafael Fonseca, M.D.
• Deputy Director at Large — Robert C. Smallridge, M.D.
• Deputy Director, Clinical Affairs — Charles Erlichman, M.D.
• Associate Director, Basic Sciences Research — Daniel D. Billadeau, Ph.D.
• Associate Director, Translational Research — Robert B. Jenkins, M.D., Ph.D.
• Associate Director, Population Sciences Research — Gloria M. Petersen, Ph.D.
• Associate Director, Education — Aminah Jatoi, M.D.
• Associate Director, Administration — Brian Nelson

Cancer Center Membership

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) encourages collaborative research among investigators within institutions. Multidisciplinary programs that encourage interactions among clinical, translational and basic scientists are likely to foster global and/or definitive approaches to complex human medical questions. The NCI supports research structure that promotes synergy among scientists that generates far-reaching insight and understanding of the biology and pathology of cancers, leading to medicines and treatments that improve the condition of cancer patients.

As an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center embodies the NCI concept of furthering knowledge and understanding of cancer though programs that bring researchers together at all levels of study.

The Cancer Center is made of members who are organized among focused programs of research, and by their common interests in cancers within specific sites in the human body. MCCC researchers benefit from access to technology and resources that promote the maximum efficiency for development of research concepts, proposals, grants and trials. The faculty list contains the more than 400 scientists who meet specific criteria to be full or associate members of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center. Additionally hundreds of other researchers, as well as clinical and allied health staff, contribute to the ongoing successes of the Cancer Center.