My mission, “Empowering patients through translational cancer research."

As Chair & Professor of Radiation Oncology, Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Thomas Jefferson University, I coordinate an interdisciplinary team of oncologists, physicists and scientists focused on multidisciplinary effort to define fundamental mechanisms and targets for combined modality radiation treatment and efficiently translate them to effective innovations in treating cancer patients.

Our group defined for prostate brachytherapy the influence of edema on dosimetric parameters critical for quality metrics, with more recent research correlating radiotherapy protocol deviations and overall survival (JNCI, 2012).  In 2013 I was appointed to the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Radiation Oncology Healthcare Advisory Council for the Radiation Oncology Incident Learning System (PSO) as part of a nationwide effort to improve safety and quality.

Our work funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Prostate Cancer Foundation focuses on the “self-seeding” of prostate cells with metastatic properties back to the site of origin, contributing to disease progression.  I am the PI of a DoD Prostate Synergy Grant, exploring the use of “smart needles” for diagnostic and therapeutic applications.  We have published numerous papers evaluating signal transduction agents with ionizing radiation and published “first in human” developmental therapeutic trials involving novel signal transduction agents and radiation therapy.

I serve as the co-Chair-Translational Science Committee for the NCI cooperative group, NRG Oncology recently awarded a U10 for an Integrated Translational Genoproteomics Center at Washington University.  The long-term objective is to enable delivery of deep tumor ‘omic analysis results to cooperative group investigators for clinical trial screening, eligibility and pharmacodynamic studies of drug action to provide maximal impact in translational medicine.  I have approval authority for the translational research across all solid tumors sites with a particular emphasis on predictive biomarkers, preclinical research, and molecular signatures.  Through a team effort, I coordinated the creation of a NCI–RTOG Translational Program Strategic Guidelines for the Early-Stage Development of Radiosensitizers (JNCI, 2013).  I serve on the Clinical, Translational, and Basic Science Advisory Committee of ASTRO and am past Chair of the Radiation and Cancer Biology Committee.  In 2014, I was selected as a Fellow of ASTRO designation (FASTRO), for contributions to the field of radiation oncology in the areas of research, education, patient care, service, and leadership.

I represent the NRG Oncology on the National Cancer Institute’s Investigational Drug Steering Committee of CTEP and am a consultant on Cancer to the European Commission, the National Cancer Institute of Canada and the Italian Association of Cancer Research.  I was recently appointed as a member of the Integration Panel for the Prostate Cancer Research Program of the DoD.  I have supervised over 40 Residents who worked with me on my clinical service.  Many of my trainees are early and mid-career clinician researchers and clinician-scientists in academic medicine here and abroad.

I have experience in clinical care, quality assurance & patient safety, prostate cancer, clinical trials, facilitating RTOG/NRG Oncology investigator research, drug development, entrepreneurship, preclinical model systems, biomarker analysis, and mentorship.

PubMed - A link to Dr. Dicker's publications