Pioneering Research Advances on Cancer 2013 — Creation of a Landmark Medical Alliance

A. James (Jim) Moser, MD , FACS, has joined the Division of Surgical Oncology in the Roberta and Stephen R. Weiner Department of Surgery as Executive Director of the new Institute for Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Moser comes to BIDMC from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), where he was a staff surgeon in the Division of Surgical Oncology and Co-Director of the multidisciplinary UPMC Pancreatic Cancer Center. He was also Associate Professor of Surgery and Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Physiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. A graduate of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, Moser completed a residency in general surgery and a research fellowship in membrane biology at UCLA Center for Health Sciences and UCLA School of Medicine in Los Angeles, CA. Moser serves as Executive Director of BIDMC’s new Institute for Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, providing leadership, strategic vision and integration of programs in general surgery, surgical oncology and transplant surgery that are focused on the surgical treatment of benign and malignant pancreatic, hepatic and biliary diseases. He has advanced surgical training and is a leader in complex, advanced robotic and minimally-invasive surgical oncology including pancreatic auto-islet transplantation.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and currently ranks third in National Institutes of Health funding among independent hospitals nationwide. BIDMC is clinically affiliated with the Joslin Diabetes Center and is a research partner of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit BIDMC’s website. In 2010, Dr. Moser was named Researcher of the Year in Pancreatic Cancer Research by the Translation Genomics Research Institute. In June 2012, Dr. Moser with his colleagues at BID performed the first robotic pancreatectomy in Boston, MA at BID Medical Center.

Amer Zureikat, MD, is a surgical oncologist in the Division of Gastrointestinal (GI) Surgical Oncology at UPMC CancerCenter, co-director of the UPMC Pancreatic Cancer Center, and assistant professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Zureikat specializes in cancers and diseases of the pancreas and practices state-of-the-art robotic technology.

Dr. Zureikat is board-certified in general surgery. He received his medical degree from the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland. Dr. Zureikat completed his residency in general surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and a fellowship in surgical oncology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Dr. Zureikat is a member of the Society of Surgical Oncology and the Association of Academic Surgeons. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

Jack Andraka has been referred to as as the “Thomas Edison of the 21st century”, by his mentor Dr. Anirban Maitra of John’s Hopkins University. Jack created a new cancer detection method that detects mesothelin, a biomarker for pancreatic cancer. The test is cheaper, less invasion, faster and more accurate than anything else on the market. The impressive part is Jack did all this at the age of 15 years old. The test itself is a paper sensor blood test that works like a blood sugar test. Each test costs only a few cents each and only takes about five minutes to complete. The test has also been shown to work in detecting other cancers like ovarian, and some lung cancers as well.

Jack became interested in this type of research after the passing of a close family friend to pancreatic cancer. During his eighth grade biology class he learned about antibodies. This knowledge led him to come up with the idea of combining antibodies with carbon nanotubes to create the rapid, cheap detection sensor. Jack then contacted over 200 different professors at major institutions and research centers like National institutes of Health (NIH) and John’s Hopkins University receiving rejection after rejection until he was accepted under the guidance of Dr. Maitra, a professor of Pathology and Oncology and a top researcher in pancreatic cancer. Jack has not only been honored by the Smithsonian Institute he was also the 2012 Intel Grand Prize winner at the Science and Engineering Fair.