Jeffrey Weitzel, MD, FACMG

Dr. Jeffrey N. Weitzel is Professor and founding Director, Division of Precision Prevention at the Kansas University Comprehensive Cancer Center, and an honorary Professor of Oncology for the Latin American School of Oncology. Board Certified in Medical Oncology and Clinical Genetics, he has been pioneering the implementation of genetics and genomics in clinical care, addressing disparities in access locally and globally, and harnessing technical advances to conduct innovative translational research spanning the bench, the bedside, rare diseases, and diverse populations. A Breast Cancer Research Foundation Scholar, he was awarded the Conquer Cancer Research Professorship in Breast Cancer Disparities at ASCO 2020. Dr. Weitzel’s research experience bridges the era from positional cloning to the realization of whole genome sequencing. He built world class programs in clinical cancer genomics and related education and research over two decades at City of Hope, and also founded the Clinical Cancer Genomics Community Research Network. He created postgraduate genetics courses and pioneered ways to teach and evaluate multidisciplinary approaches to cancer risk counseling and promote successful career development training for clinician scientists. His collective and interconnected contributions to human genetics education merited the 2019 American Society of Human Genetics Award for Human Genetics Education. One overarching theme for his work is precision prevention and implementation science addressing disparities in access to this lifesaving science, and translation of genomic risk stratification into development and promotion of interventional cancer screening and prevention trials. He co-leads the Heartland Li Fraumeni Syndrome Program, an interdisciplinary collaborative team supporting patients and families with screening, prevention and cancer treatment from childhood at Childrens Mercy Hospital Kansas City to adulthood at Kansas University Medical Center,

Dr. Weitzel established an IRB-approved hereditary cancer research registry and developed an international collaborative network of community-based oncogenetic practices, the Clinical Cancer Genomics Community Research Network (CCGCRN). With BCRF support this registry recruited more than 10,000 Latin Americans, and enabled illumination of the genomic etiology of breast and ovarian cancer and disparities in access to and outcome of care among Hispanics in the US and Latin America. With BCRF support he developed and piloted a multimodal Implementation intervention, Genomic Risk Assessment for Cancer Implementation and Sustainment (GRACIAS) in Mexico. The CCGCRN registry was used to discern paternal inheritance, changed NCCN guidelines and assessed BRCA associated risk for breast, pancreatic and prostate cancer, and establish collaborations with numerous consortia (e.g., CIMBA, ENIGMA, PROSE, SIMPLEXO, LiFE), producing more than 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts. An investigator in the CARRIERS project, they have produced recent critical observations about population-based risk associated with breast cancer susceptibility genes, as well as the modification of that risk by polygenic risk scores (PRS); PRS-related manuscripts with CIMBA, Myriad Genetics and Myome lead to real world implementation studies. He characterized the phenotype of TP53-associated breast cancers, and critical observations about discordance between phenotype and TP53 status led to identification of TP53-associated clonal hematopoiesis and post-zygotic mosaicism.
Pre-clinical research established that carboplatin and a PARP inhibitor (Veliparib) could act in a synergistic manner in a BRCA-null setting, and he translated these results into a successful NCI CTEP-sponsored clinical trial (R21 funded correlative studies). A co-investigator in the landmark phase II trials of Olaparib in patients with BRCA-associated breast cancer and ovarian cancer, they demonstrated proof of principle for synthetic lethality as a therapeutic strategy. He also developed chemoprevention protocols for individuals at high risk of cancer, including a phase II biomarker trial of deslorelin (GnRH agonist), estradiol, and testosterone which established proof of principle that a hormonal chemoprevention regimen could be used to reduce breast density in BRCA1 carriers without negatively affecting quality of life. He has conducted clinical/translational trials in cancer etiology (Li Fraumeni Syndrome and TP53), clonal hematopoiesis, cancer prevention and techniques for early detection of cancer, including cell-free DNA approaches, predictive genomic testing, and targeted therapeutic protocols such as PARP inhibitors in BRCA-associated cancer.