Vice Dean for Clinical Science Research
University of Chicago
Dr. Oakes attended medical school at the University of Connecticut during which he spent an additional year doing research at the NIH. After medical school, he completed residency in anatomic pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and postdoctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His research laboratory at the University of Chicago focuses on mechanistically understanding and drugging key cell stress pathways in cancer, inflammatory diseases, and metabolic disorders of the pancreas. In particular, he studies how mammalian cells sense and respond to various forms of organellar stress through the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) and Integrated Stress Response (ISR), and what goes wrong with these signaling pathways in pancreatic diseases of cell loss (e.g., pancreatitis, diabetes) and cell gain (e.g., pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma). He is a Program Leader of Molecular Mechanisms of Cancer at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center. His discoveries have been published in Science, Cell, Nature Cell Biology, Cell Metabolism, and other high impact journals.
Dr. Oakes has a long history of training PhD students, MD/PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and physician-scientists; all of whom have gone on to careers in biomedical research, including tenured or tenure-track faculty. Before moving to University of Chicago from University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in 2019, he was Director of the UCSF Pathology/Lab Medicine Physician‐Scientist Pathway; Associate Director for the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP); and PI on a T32 postdoctoral training grant (T32CA177555) entitled “Molecular Pathology of Cancer.” At University of Chicago, he is Co-PD of the graduate student “Multi-disciplinary training grant in cancer research,” (T32CA009594), and is on the Admissions Committee for the MSTP program. As Vice Chair of Research for the Dept of Pathology, he has greatly expanded the Experimental Pathology section through the recruitment of pathologist-scientists. As Vice Dean of Clinical Science Research, he plays a central role in steering the research enterprise for the Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Oakes has won numerous awards for his research, including an HHMI Early Career Physician Scientist Award, American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award, Harrington Discovery Institute Scholar-Innovator Award, American Association for Cancer Research Award, Induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), UCSF Outstanding Mentor Award, and Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP).
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