Surgical Oncologist
University of Rochester Medical Center
Dr. David C. Linehan is the Seymour Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Oncology and Department of Surgery Chairman at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry (URSMD). He holds an additional appointment as the Associate Director of Clinical Research at Wilmot Cancer Institute. As the Founder and Director of the Center for Tumor Immunology Research, he leads a translational research effort that has resulted in several impactful investigator-initiated trials in pancreas cancer and other hepatobiliary malignancies.
He obtained his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and his medical degree from University of Massachusetts. He completed a General Surgery Residency Program at the Deaconess-Harvard Surgical Service at Harvard Medical School from 1990-1997. After the completion of his general surgery training and his post-doctoral research fellowship, he served as the Kristin Ann Carr Surgical Oncology Fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute (MSKCC) with a clinical focus on liver and pancreas cancer surgery.
As a surgeon-scientist his laboratory has been continuously funded since he completed fellowship. He was recruited to Washington University in St Louis as an Assistant Professor of Surgery where he rose to become the Chief of the Section of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery. In 2014, he was recruited to the University of Rochester. His publications on innate cells in the tumor microenvironment have influenced the field of solid tumor immunotherapy, by highlighting the complex mechanisms of the immunosuppressive biology of the tumor microenvironment.
Dr. Linehan has had many national and international roles. He has served on the Executive Committee and chaired the Program Committee for the Society of Surgical Oncology. He was also appointed to the Program Committee of American Society of Clinical Oncology and served as the Track Leader for Gastrointestinal Cancer. He is a member of the American Surgical Association and the Society of Clinical Surgery.