Brian M. Wolpin, MD, MPH; Course Director

Director, Gastrointestinal Cancer Center,
Robert T. and Judith B. Hale Chair in Pancreatic Cancer,
Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center;
Associate Professor of Medicine,
Harvard Medical School

Brian Wolpin, MD, MPH, is Director of the Hale Family Research Center, Director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center, Co-Director of the Pancreas and Biliary Tumor Center, and the Robert T. and Judith B. Hale Chair in Pancreatic Cancer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Wolpin’s clinical practice involves the care of patients with gastrointestinal cancers, with a particular focus on pancreatic cancer. He has held several leadership positions related to clinical expertise, including membership on the Alliance/CALGB Gastrointestinal Cancer Committee and Pancreas Cancer Working Group, National Comprehensive Cancer Network Guidelines Committee for Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma, and Vice Chair of the National Cancer Institute Pancreas Task Force.

Dr. Wolpin’s research program is focused on understanding the factors that cause pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma to develop and grow. These studies involve evaluation of mutations in both heritable and non-heritable genes in hundreds to thousands of subjects. His research has been funded by the National Cancer Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Lustgarten Foundation, Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Stand Up To Cancer, ASCO Conquer Cancer Foundation, and U.S. Department of Defense.

Dr. Wolpin obtained his Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School and completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He completed fellowship training in medical oncology at Dana-Farber and returned to Brigham and Women’s Hospital to serve as Chief Medical Resident. Subsequently, he received a Master of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health.

Director, Program in Carcinoid and Neuroendocrine Tumors,
Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center;
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Harvard Medical School

Dr. Chan is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and is a Senior Physician in the Division of Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA.  She specializes in the treatment of gastrointestinal cancers and neuroendocrine tumors.  She received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed her residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and fellowship training in medical oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  She currently serves as the clinical director of the Program in Neuroendocrine and Carcinoid Tumors at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center and has been involved in studies investigating novel therapies for neuroendocrine tumors.

Marios Giannakis, MD, PhD

Medical Oncologist, Gastrointestinal Cancer Center,
Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center;
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Harvard Medical School

Dr. Giannakis is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a translational researcher and a physician in the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center in the Division of Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA.  He received his medical and doctoral degrees from Washington University in Saint Louis and completed his residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and fellowship training in medical oncology and hematology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  As a physician-scientist, Dr. Giannakis specializes in the treatment of gastrointestinal cancers and is an independent investigator whose laboratory and research focuses on the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer and the development of novel targeted and immune-based therapies for patients with this disease.

Lipika Goyal, MD

Medical Oncologist, Division of Hematology/Oncology,
Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center;
Instructor in Medicine,
Harvard Medical School

Dr. Lipika Goyal completed her B.A. in neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania and then went on to win a Rhodes Scholarship to pursue a Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at the University of Oxford.  She then attended Harvard Medical School, the Brigham and Woman’s Hospital Internal Medicine Residency, and the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Hematology/Oncology Fellowship for her medical training.  In 2013, she joined the faculty of the MGH Cancer Center as a medical oncologist in the Gastrointestinal Oncology group and currently leads research efforts in liver cancer at MGH.  Her research focuses on the development of effective therapies for cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) through translational and clinical research efforts.  She is the Principal Investigator on multiple clinical trials in hepatobiliary cancers and heads research collaborations focused on FGFR resistance in CCA, biomarker discovery, and immunotherapy in hepatobiliary cancers.  The main goal of her research is to improve outcomes for patients with these difficult cancers. She has received several grants for her research in cholangiocarcinoma including the MGH American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant, the GI SPORE Career Development Award, the ECOR Fund for Medical Discovery Fellowship Award, the Jonathan Kraft Translational Grant, the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation Research Grant, the V Foundation Award, and the National Institutes of Health Loan Repayment Grant for Clinical Research.

Harvey J. Mamon, MD, PhD

Chief, Division of Gastrointestinal Radiation Oncology,
Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center;
Associate Professor, Radiation Oncology,
Harvard Medical School

Dr. Mamon is an Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Harvard Medical School, and is the Director of Gastrointestinal Radiation Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  He specializes in the treatment of GI malignancies and is involved in clinical trials aimed at improving the use of radiation in treating GI cancers.  He received his medical degree from the University of Massachusetts and completed his residency in radiation oncology at the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy, where he was Chief Resident during his final year.  He currently serves as the Director of Gastrointestinal Radiation Oncology the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is the radiation oncology vice-Chair of the GI Committee of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. Research interests include retrospective assessments of treatment approaches and outcomes, leadership roles in completed and ongoing national cooperative group clinical trials, improved tumor imaging, and prospective blood collection for analysis of circulating tumor DNA in rectal and esophageal cancer.

Jonathan A. Nowak, MD, PhD

Pathologist,
Brigham and Women’s Hospital;
Assistant Professor, Pathology,
Harvard Medical School

Jonathan A. Nowak, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Pathology  at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Pathologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

 Dr. Nowak earned his medical degree from the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and his PhD at The Rockefeller University. He completed his residency and fellowship training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and is board-certified in anatomic and clinical pathology and molecular genetic pathology. As a faculty member in pathology, Jonathan helps design and interpret next generation sequencing assays for clinical tumor characterization. He also leads a newly established constitutional genetics testing service focused on hereditary cancer predisposition. Jonathan’s research is focused on the pathologic characterization of gastrointestinal cancers, chiefly colorectal and pancreatic cancer, through multiple patient cohorts under study at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Aparna R. Parikh, MD

Medical Oncologist, Division of Hematology/Oncology,
Massachusetts General Hospital;
Instructor in Medicine,
Harvard Medical School

Dr. Parikh was recruited to the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in the Tucker Gosnell Center for Gastrointestinal Cancer and the Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies in 2016. She completed internal medicine residency at the MGH and clinical oncology fellowship at UCSF. After fellowship, she worked briefly at Genentech while retaining clinical and teaching responsibilities at UCSF. 

At MGH, she has focus on gastrointestinal cancers, particularly colorectal and pancreatic cancer with the goal of harnessing novel strategies, including novel immunotherapy approaches to improve outcomes in these challenging cancers and is leading clinical investigator in the group.

She also leads the clinical efforts of the liquid biopsy program within Gastrointestinal Cancer Center that is a cornerstone of the GI program. The team is using liquid biopsies as a platform for understanding heterogeneous resistance mechanisms to targeted therapy and immunotherapy, tracking response to chemotherapy, targeted therapies and immunotherapy and in minimal residual disease after surgery. This work has led to a seminal paper on cell free DNA in GI Cancers, published in Nature Medicine in 2019.

She is also PI of a large, multi-institutional Stand Up 2 Cancer 400 patient trial that is using liquid biopsies to guide adjuvant colorectal cancer treatment and also leading a clinical trial comparing liquid biopsies to patient reported outcomes and tumor markers in predicting treatment response in GI cancers. She also directs the teaching curriculum for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Cancer Center Oncology Fellows as they do GI oncology at MGH and is actively engaged with medical student and resident. She was recently selected for the prestigious ASCO Education Scholars program.

She has received funding from the American Cancer Society, NCI GI Spore, Gateway Foundation and Stand up 2 Cancer. She also was named a Barry Scholar at MGH, a fellowship that supports rising junior faculty and most recently received the ASCO Career Development Award.

Besides a robust clinical investigator and teaching role, she has maintained a passion for cancer in the developing world after several international experiences over the years and developed and co-directs an initiative that is bringing trainees from Sub-Saharan Africa to MGH to help enhance their medical oncology training.

Dr. Parikh’s passion is caring for patients while being involved with teaching, mentoring and cutting-edge science in hopes of moving the needle for cancer patients in the United States and across the globe.

Jiping Wang, MD, PhD

Surgical Oncologist, Gastrointestinal Cancer Center,
Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center;
Associate Professor, Surgery,
Harvard Medical School

Dr. Jiping Wang, is Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, and a surgical oncologist at the Dana Farber Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. He serves as Associate Director of Hepatobiliary Cancer Program at Division of Surgical Oncology, Division of Surgical Oncology, Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Professor Wang's main clinical focus is surgical treatment of sarcoma and digestive tract tumors with minimally invasive approach. Dr. Wang has been involved in cancer research for more than twenty years. He had five years’ experience in designing, conducting and reporting phase III clinical trials at National Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP).  He is also a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) program committee and a member of the Oncology Surgery (SSO) research committee. Furthermore, he is the founding editor-in-chief of Art of Surgery and the deputy editor of NEJM YXQY.

Michael Casey, APRN-BC, FNP

Nurse Practitioner, Gastrointestinal Cancer Center,
Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center