Office:	UPMC Hillman Cancer Center
	5117 Centre Avenue, Suite 1.32c
	Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Phone:	412-623-7707
Fax:	412-623-7704
E-mail:	kirkwoodjm@upmc.edu

Education
	Biochemistry, Oberlin College, 1969
	Immunology, Memorial Sloan Kettering, 1969
	MD, Yale University, 1973
	Pathology, Yale University, 1973

Training
	Intern, Medicine, Yale-New Haven Hospital, 1974
	Resident, Medicine, Yale-New Haven Hospital, 1976
	Postdoctoral-Fellowship, Harvard University, 1978
	Roosevelt Fellow, ACS and UICC, National Cancer Insitute, Milan, Italy, 1985

Dr. Kirkwood’s research focuses upon melanoma immunobiology, therapy and prevention. His translational studies established the first effective adjuvant therapy of melanoma, and identified the immunological basis of this therapy, and are now probing the role of molecularly targeted agents (BRAF, MEK, and PI3Kdelta/gamma inhibitors) that may improve upon the efficacy of anti-PD1 immunotherapy, both in advanced melanoma and in the adjuvant operable high-risk melanoma settings. He has advanced the multimodal therapy of melanoma with surgery, stereotactic radiotherapy, and molecular antitumor agents, displacing chemotherapy in the management of melanoma. He is now pioneering novel clinical trial designs to assess the myriad potential combinations of recently-approved molecular and immunological therapies that are anticipated to be the focus of translational clinical research trials in melanoma for the next decade. His laboratory is engaged in the molecular and immunohistological analysis of tissues obtained from local institutional, regional, national, and international trials of new therapy. Tumor tissues from patients participating in new modalities and combination therapies, neoadjuvant trials, and prevention interventions are probed using current immunopathological and molecular assessments of signaling pathways, and immune responses to melanoma. Dr. Kirkwood initiated the Biospecimen Repository of the Melanoma and Skin Cancer Program (1996-present, 7,000+ specimens) funded initially through his Specialized Program of Research Excellence 2008-2019, and more recently an endowment that have been promoted research by investigators within and outside the University of Pittsburgh, the Regional Melanoma Translational Research Consortium, the National Clinical Trials Network and the International Melanoma Working Group.

Dr. Kirkwood has studied the immunobiology of melanoma first in advanced, and then in the high-risk disease setting. His work led to the FDA & worldwide regulatory approval of the first adjuvant therapy for melanoma (IFN alfa, 1995) and more recently include the targeted BRAF/MEK inhibitor adjuvant therapy of stage III melanoma (dabrafenib/trametinib, approved 2018). He has led trials that brought more effective checkpoint blockade immunotherapies into the therapy of earlier (stage II) disease with anti-PD1 immunotherapy pembrolizumab (2021) and nivolumab (2022). He has turned to therapeutic prevention of melanoma, in the phase II ECOG-ACRIN-6201 (2022). His studies conducted locally in the UPMC have expanded to the Melanoma Translational Research Consortium (formed of 10 tri-state institutions, 2014, and the ECOG-ACRIN nationally as chair of the Melanoma Committee 1989-2019 and now chairing the EA-Prevention Committee. He has led the International Melanoma Working Group founded in 2005-present, working with the academic, pharmaceutical and regulatory authorities to accelerate new therapies and combinations. Both at UPMC HCC snd in the US National Clinical Trials Networks, biomarker discovery is an emphasis probing the mechanism of new agents. Dr. Kirkwood has conducted the first neoadjuvant trials of immunotherapies in melanoma, and combinations of anti-PD1 and other immunomodulators. In primary melanoma, Dr. Kirkwood is leading efforts to improve early detection and therapeutic prevention, analyzing progression from the atypical/dysplastic nevus into invasive melanoma.

Dr. Kirkwood has trained more than 200 fellows, many of whom are now leaders of melanoma investigation across the US and in Europe. He has held an Oncology Training Grant and more recently a Melanoma and Skin Biology T32 training grant. He has published more than 550 original peer-reviewed articles and 175 reviews, editorials, and chapters. He was elected to the Association of American Physicians in 2014, and is a member of AACR, ASCO, SITC, and multiple editorial boards of the leading journals in the field of medical oncology, cutaneous oncology and immunotherapy.

For my complete bibliography, Click Here.

Selected Publications: