Michael V Seiden, MD, PhD

Michael V. Seiden, MD, PhD, comes to Fox Chase from Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, where he led the gynecologic cancer program and served as chief of the clinical research unit in Massachusetts General's division of cancer medicine. In addition, his responsibilities included serving as associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and physician coordinator of the cancer stem-cell project at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.

His research focuses on clinical and translational studies in ovarian cancer. Translational studies are designed to expedite the application of laboratory discoveries to clinical therapies for patients and to use clinical insights to form testable questions in the laboratory to help advance our understanding of cancer biology.

His basic laboratory investigations have 3 major themes. These include studies on the molecular mechanisms of drug resistance, especially resistance to the drug paclitaxel (Taxol). Second, the development of a novel imaging platform has improved our ability to detect and characterize small volume intraperitoneal tumors in women with ovarian cancer. Finally, the laboratory, in collaboration with investigators at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, conducts studies to identify and characterize the ovarian cancer stem cell.

As chairman of the clinical research committee for the Gynecologic Cancer Program at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Seiden led and fostered a multi-institutional, multi-specialist program with a full range of phase I and II trials, an ovarian tumor bank for translational research, a quality-of-life program and efforts to improve care in underserved populations.

His recent honors include being named as Massachusetts Breast Cancer Scholar in 1995 and again in 2000 and 2001. He successfully competed for a Clinical Interface Award funded through the Doris Duke Foundation. He has also been an invited lecturer at the international ovarian cancer forums sponsored by England's Helene Harris Memorial Trust in 2001, 2005 and 2007.

Seiden serves on the editorial boards of the journals Clinical Cancer Research, the Journal of Clinical Oncology and The Oncologist and is an ad hoc reviewer for a number of others, including The New England Journal of Medicine and British Journal of Cancer. He is also active in many professional organizations and has served on various national and international committees and advisory boards.

An Open Letter to Fox Chase Staff and Friends Announcing Dr. Seiden as the Center's President (March 22, 2007)