Joel S. Greenberger, MD
Joel S. Greenberger, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, is a co-director of the Lung and Esophageal Cancer Program. His research interests include gene therapy for protection of normal tissues from radiation damage.
Dr. Greenberger received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, where he became associate professor of radiation therapy. He then became professor and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Massachusetts before he assumed the same post in Pittsburgh. He is the recipient of the Sara Stone Burns Award of the ACS, Massachusetts Division, for an innovative, research grant proposal.
James D. Luketich, MD
James D. Luketich, MD, associate professor of surgery and chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery, is a co-director of the Lung and Esophageal Cancer Program. He also is the director of Thoracic Surgical Oncology and a co-director of the Mark Ravitch/Leon C. Hirsch Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery. Dr. Luketich's interests include all areas of thoracic oncology and his research interests include photodynamic therapy for lung cancer and the early detection of lung cancer. He also has a special interest in minimally invasive surgical approaches to esophageal and lung cancers.
Prior to coming to Pittsburgh, Dr. Luketich was a senior instructor in surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Program. His medical school training was at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. He completed his general surgery residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was Chief Resident of Surgery. He completed his cardiothoracic and thoracic training at New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Program. Dr. Luketich is a member of professional and medical societies including, among others, the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons, the Society of Thoracic Surgery, the Society of Surgical Oncology, the American Thoracic Society, the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons and the American College of Gastroenterology.
Jill M. Siegfried, PhD
Jill M. Siegfried, PhD, professor and vice chair of pharmacology, the Lung and Esophageal Cancer Program Leader (Research), is a nationally recognized investigator in lung epithelial cell biology and lung cancer. She has been actively involved in cancer research for the past 24 years. She graduated with a doctorate in Pharmacology in 1981 from Yale University and received postdoctoral training at the Lineberger Cancer Program at the University of North Carolina.
Dr. Siegfried joined the University of Pittsburgh as an assistant professor in 1988, after a six-year tenure at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Research Center in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Among her research accomplishments, she developed a culture system that allows establishment of cell lines from fresh, primary, nonsmall cell tumors, facilitating genetic and biochemical analysis of human lung cancer. She also has identified growth factors important in the growth of nonsmall cell tumors and she has shown that neuroendocrine peptides such as gastrin-releasing peptide and neuromedin B are important regulators for the normal bronchial epithelium and for nonsmall cell tumors. Since coming to the University of Pittsburgh, she has been the recipient of grants from a number of agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the EPA and the Department of Defense, as well as a 1989 Junior Faculty Research Award from the American Cancer Society (ACS).
Dr. Siegfried was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1992 and was appointed vice-chair of the Department of Pharmacology in 1994. Dr. Siegfried was promoted to professor in 1998 and at that time also was appointed co-director of the Lung and Esophageal Cancer Program. She has served on a number of grant-review panels for the ACS, the NIH and the Department of Defense. In 2000, she was appointed to the Lung Cancer Review Panel for the State of California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program and also received the 15th Annual Alton Ochsner Foundation Award Relating Smoking and Health in recognition of her contribution to understanding the enhanced susceptibility of women to lung cancer.
