Raymond N. DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., was named dean of the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in 2016 and later named director of MUSC Hollings Cancer Center in 2020. In 2022, he stepped down as dean to assume the full-time role of director of Hollings Cancer Center and associate provost for Cancer Programs at MUSC. Before these positions, he served as executive director of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University (ASU). He held the Dalton Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry, with a joint appointment as professor of Medicine in the Mayo College of Medicine. From 2007 to 2012, he served as provost and executive vice president at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He held the Ellen Knisely Distinguished Chair in Colon Cancer Research. During his tenure at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (1991-2007), he served as director of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition and director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. In 2015, he was honored at Vanderbilt as an honorary member of the Tinsley Harrison Society at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Dr. DuBois is an internationally renowned expert and is known for his work elucidating the role of inflammation and inflammatory mediators in the progression of colon cancer. His laboratory examines the molecular mechanisms by which inflammatory mediators affect epithelial biology, the tumor microenvironment, and cancerization. In the 1990s, he and colleagues made the landmark discovery that colorectal tumors contained high levels of a key enzyme (COX-2), which regulates prostaglandin production. COX-2 catalyzes a key step in the production of pro-inflammatory mediators, resulting in the synthesis of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2). This work, along with other studies, has unveiled a better understanding of the role of anti-inflammatory agents, such as aspirin, in reducing cancer risk. This has led to clinical trials, which have shown how drugs that inhibit this pathway can prevent or intercept the early stages of cancer development. More recent studies have revealed that PGE2 regulates the immune status of the tumor microenvironment, and inhibitors of PGE2 signaling block tumor metastasis and cancer progression.
Dr. DuBois was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine in October 2019 and is currently a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Royal College of Physicians (London), and the Academy of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). In 2019, he was awarded the AACR Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research. Other major awards for his cancer research include the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Research Award, the Dorothy P. Landon-AACR Cancer Prize, and the Anthony Dipple Carcinogenesis Award given by Oxford University Press. He is a past president of AACR, the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation, and the International Society for Gastrointestinal Cancer. He currently serves as President and Chair of the AACR Foundation Board. In 2018, he was named to the steering committee for the AACR Academy and selected as a Vice Chair for the Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) Scientific Advisory Board. He is also a member of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, the Association of American Physicians, and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He also serves as an editor-in-chief for Cancer Prevention Research, published by AACR.
During his career as a physician-scientist, Dr. DuBois has published over 160 peer-reviewed research articles, more than 60 review articles, 25 book chapters, and three books. His work has been cited over 72,000 times according to Google Scholar (H-index=122). He is also a co-inventor of a method to identify and target cellular genes needed for viral growth, as well as cellular genes that function as tumor suppressors in mammals.
Dr. DuBois earned a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry with honors from Texas A&M University and a Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He obtained a medical degree from the University of Texas School of Medicine in San Antonio, Texas, followed by completion of an Osler Medicine internship/residency, as well as a gastroenterology fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. In 2007, he was honored at Hopkins by being inducted into the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars.