John Minna, M.D.

Dr. Minna is Director of the Hamon Center for Therapeutic Oncology Research, and Professor of Internal Medicine and Pharmacology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He holds the Max L. Thomas Distinguished Chair in Molecular Pulmonary Oncology and the Sarah M. and Charles E. Seay Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research (1991-present). He graduated from Stanford Medical School where he did research with Dr. Leonard Herzenberg, was a resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, a Research Associate at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (under Dr. Marshal Nirenberg), Chief of the Section of Somatic Cell Genetics, Chief of the NCI-VA and then NCI-Navy Medical Oncology Branches at the National Cancer Institute (1975-1991).  His work has focused on understanding the molecular pathogenesis of lung cancer and translating this into the clinic.  As part of this he has trained many investigators in lung cancer research.  He has led a joint Lung Cancer NCI Special Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant between UTSW and the MD Anderson Cancer Center and is part of several NCI and State of Texas Cancer Prevention and Research Institute (CPRIT) multi-investigator grants to discover new therapeutic approaches and personalized medicine for lung cancer.  He co-leads the Experimental Therapeutics Program for the UTSW Simmons Cancer Center. Currently he is working with a team of UTSW and MDACC scientists to discover all of the “acquired vulnerabilities” in lung cancer and their associated predictive molecular signatures to provide a new functional classification of lung cancer and rationale therapeutics for all new lung cancer patients. He has served on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute, Scientific Advisory Boards for several Cancer Centers, several cancer research foundation including the V-Foundation, Forbeck Foundation, as well as for the National Cancer Institute, the Board of Directors for the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

He has received numerous awards including: PHS  (Commendation Medal (1979), Meritorious Service Medical (1986), Unit Commendation Medal (1991)); Rosenthal Prize for Cancer Research (1984); Milken Foundation Award for Scientific Excellence in Clinical Research (1989); Chester Stock Award, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (1992); Bristol Myers Squibb Award for Lung Cancer Research (1997); Moran Award Univ. Michigan (2000), NCI SPORE Program Award for Leadership (2003), Ochsner Award Smoking Related Research (2004), ASCO Scientific Achievement Award (2005), Pfizer Visiting Professor Oncology (Vanderbilt, 2006), ASCO Statesman Award (2007), Baylor College of Medicine Helis Foundation Award for Lifetime Achievement in Lung Cancer Research (2010), Addario Lung Cancer Foundation Asclepios Award (2012), United Against Lung Cancer (UALC), Caine Halter Hope Now Award for Lung Cancer Research (2013), Giants of Cancer Care (2015), Abbott ISOBM Award (2016).

He has an H-Index of 193 (136,238 citations), and a D-Index of 179 with a World medicine ranking of 130, and National USA ranking of 90 by Research.com.

Medical School

Stanford University Medical Center (1967)

Internship

Massachusetts General Hospital (1968), Medicine

Residency

Massachusetts General Hospital (1969), Medicine

Fellowship

National Institutes of Health (1973), Biochemical Genetics

• Breast Cancer
• Genome wide mRNA, protein, and DNA analysis
• Lung Cancer
• Molecular biomarkers of response to cancer therapy
• Molecular pathogenesis of human cancer

Featured Publications

MCT4-dependent lactate secretion suppresses antitumor immunity in LKB1-deficient lung adenocarcinoma.

Qian Y, Galan-Cobo A, Guijarro I, Dang M, Molkentine D, Poteete A, Zhang F, Wang Q, Wang J, Parra E, Panda A, Fang J, Skoulidis F, Wistuba II, Verma S, Merghoub T, Wolchok JD, Wong KK, DeBerardinis RJ, Minna JD, Vokes NI, Meador CB, Gainor JF, Wang L, Reuben A, Heymach JV, Cancer Cell 2023 Jul 41 7 1363-1380.e7

Single-cell transcriptomic analysis uncovers intratumoral heterogeneity and drug-tolerant persister in ALK-rearranged lung adenocarcinoma.

Kwok HH, Li H, Yang J, Deng J, Lee NC, Au TW, Sit AK, Hsin MK, Ma SK, Cheung LW, Girard L, Fujimoto J, Wistuba II, Gao B, Minna JD, Lam DC, Cancer Commun (Lond) 2023 Jun

A Comparative Study of Neuroendocrine Heterogeneity in Small Cell Lung Cancer and Neuroblastoma.

Cai L, DeBerardinis RJ, Xie Y, Minna JD, Xiao G, Mol Cancer Res 2023 May OF1-OF13

Tumor loss-of-function mutations in STK11/LKB1 induce cachexia.

Iyengar P, Gandhi AY, Granados J, Guo T, Gupta A, Yu J, Llano EM, Zhang F, Gao A, Kandathil A, Williams D, Gao B, Girard L, Malladi VS, Shelton JM, Evers BM, Hannan R, Ahn C, Minna JD, Infante RE, JCI Insight 2023 Apr 8 8

Moving toward precision medicine with lung cancer organoids.

Kim J, Minna JD, Cell Rep Med 2023 Feb 4 2 100952

CD70 is a therapeutic target upregulated in EMT-associated EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance.

Nilsson MB, Yang Y, Heeke S, Patel SA, Poteete A, Udagawa H, Elamin YY, Moran CA, Kashima Y, Arumugam T, Yu X, Ren X, Diao L, Shen L, Wang Q, Zhang M, Robichaux JP, Shi C, Pfeil AN, Tran H, Gibbons DL, Bock J, Wang J, Minna JD, Kobayashi SS, Le X, Heymach JV, Cancer Cell 2023 Feb 41 2 340-355.e6

Features of tumor-microenvironment images predict targeted therapy survival benefit in patients with EGFR-mutant lung cancer.

Wang S, Rong R, Yang DM, Fujimoto J, Bishop JA, Yan S, Cai L, Behrens C, Berry LD, Wilhelm C, Aisner D, Sholl L, Johnson BE, Kwiatkowski DJ, Wistuba II, Bunn PA, Minna J, Xiao G, Kris MG, Xie Y, J Clin Invest 2023 Jan 133 2

Glucocorticoid mediated inhibition of LKB1 mutant non-small cell lung cancers.

Huffman KE, Li LS, Carstens R, Park H, Girard L, Avila K, Wei S, Kollipara R, Timmons B, Sudderth J, Bendris N, Kim J, Villalobos P, Fujimoto J, Schmid S, Deberardinis RJ, Wistuba I, Heymach J, Kittler R, Akbay EA, Posner B, Wang Y, Lam S, Kliewer SA, Mangelsdorf DJ, Minna JD, Front Oncol 2023 13 1025443

Integrative epigenomic analyses of small cell lung cancer cells demonstrates the clinical translational relevance of gene body methylation.

Pongor LS, Tlemsani C, Elloumi F, Arakawa Y, Jo U, Gross JM, Mosavarpour S, Varma S, Kollipara RK, Roper N, Teicher BA, Aladjem MI, Reinhold W, Thomas A, Minna JD, Johnson JE, Pommier Y, iScience 2022 Nov 25 11 105338

A Pan-Cancer Assessment of RB1/TP53 Co-Mutations.

Cai L, DeBerardinis RJ, Xiao G, Minna JD, Xie Y, Cancers (Basel) 2022 Aug 14 17

• ASCO Award
  Statesman (2007)
• ASCO Award
  Lifetime Scientific Achievement (2005)
• Ochsner Award
  Award for Smoking Related Research (2004)
• Bristol Myers Squibb Award
  Award for Lung Cancer Research (1997)
• Rosenthal Prize
  Prize for Cancer Research (1984)

• American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
• American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
• ASBMB, ASCI, AFCR, ASH, IASLC
• Association of American Physicians (AAP)
• Fellow American College of Physicians (FACP)