Grand Rounds January 23 Wicha
Max Wicha MD
Professor of Medicine
Director, Comprehensive Cancer Center
Distinuished Professor of Oncology
University of Michigan
Brief Biography ::
As founding director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Max Wicha, MD, is responsible for coordinating all cancer activities related to research and patient care.
Dr. Wicha also serves as the distinguished professor of oncology, professor of internal medicine and is nationally known for his research in the field of breast oncology, particularly the study of how breast cancer cells grow and metastasize. His lab was part of the team that first discovered stem cells in breast cancer, the first described in any human solid tumor.
Since then, Dr. Wicha has become one of the leading experts on cancer stem cells, with his continued work on breast cancer stem cells. He has also led efforts within the UMCCC to expand these findings into other tumor types. U-M researchers were first to discover stem cells in pancreatic and head and neck cancers and are focusing on cancer stem cells in virtually every cancer type, including colon, lung and thyroid tumors.
Dr. Wicha is also active as a clinician, specializing in the treatment of breast cancer patients. He has served as chairman of the board of the Association of American Cancer Institutes and as past chairman for the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Center Support Review Committee.
Dr. Wicha joined the University of Michigan Medical Center in 1980. From 1984 to 1993, he served as chief in the Division of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Wicha received his medical degree from Stanford University and trained in internal medicine at the University of Chicago. He then went on to the National Cancer Institute, where he trained in clinical oncology and cancer biology.
