Ravi Salgia, M.D., Ph.D.
- Contact Address
- The University of Chicago Cancer Research Center
The University of Chicago
5841 South Maryland Avenue, MC 1140
Chicago, IL, 60637 - Contact Phone
- (773) 702-6180
- Professional Affiliations
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- University of Chicago Cancer Research Center
Position held: Director of the Thoracic Oncology Research Program
- University of Chicago Cancer Research Center
- Expertise
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- Thoracic Oncology
- Education
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- Loyola University of Chicago, M.D., Ph.D
- Website
- Biography/CV (will open new window)
- Biography
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Ravi Salgia, PhD, MD, is the Director of the Thoracic Oncology Research Program, an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of Hematology/Oncology, head of the Aerodigestive Tract Program Translational Research Laboratories, and a Member of the Cancer Research Center at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Ravi Salgia came to the U of C in 2003 from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute to serve as Director of Thoracic Oncology Research Program in the Section of Hematology/Oncology and enhance translational research. He has successfully expanded the translational research base in malignancies of the upper aero-digestive tract adding this important aspect to a very busy clinical program and clinical research. Dr. Ravi Salgia has extensive experience in translational research and has two patents. One patent is on the novel therapy for small cell lung cancer with imatinib and CXCR44 inhibition. Another is on c-Met inhibition with mTOR inhibition.
Dr. Salgia earned his PhD from Loyola University of Chicago while working on his MD, which he received following completion of his doctorate. As an undergraduate, he published award-winning original articles in mathematics on n-dimensional unit space and basic complex analysis. His dissertation focused on the study of membranes in Gaucher’s disease. He left Chicago for his internship and residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Internal Medicine (1987-1990). Working with Dr. O. Michael Colvin, he also developed mathematical modeling of endosomal/lysosomal pathways during his time at Johns Hopkins. Upon completion of his residency, he was a clinical oncology fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School (DFCI/HMS) (1990-1993), and he was also a research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. James D. Griffin. He initially defined the regulation of cytoskeletal function in normal hematopoiesis and in chronic myelogenous leukemia. He was also the first to clone the cytoskeletal proteins paxillin and trabeculin.
Since his fellowship, Dr. Salgia has been a thoracic oncologist (also seeing primarily thoracic oncology patients) with particular interest in translational research. He was an Instructor in Medicine at the DFCI/HMS/Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) from 1993-1996, and defined key pathways for cell motility and migration, as well as downstream signal transduction pathways as related to tyrosine kinases. As an assistant professor at DFCI/HMS/BWH (1996-2003), he led the efforts in studying key pathways in lung cancer and the potential for novel therapeutics. His laboratory was the first to identify the inhibition of c-Kit with imatinib in vitro as well as the modulation of topoisomerase-I by c-Kit modulation. He had also been involved in a number of clinical protocols and protocol developments at the DFCI.
Dr. Salgia’s laboratory was also the first to identify the role of c-Met in lung cancer. Specifically, the lab identified particular mutations in the juxtamembrane and semaphorin domains and not the tyrosine kinase domain of c-Met. His lab also showed the regulation of the cytoskeletal with the juxtamembrane mutations of c-Met, especially as related to the focal adhesion protein paxillin. He also determined the biological functions as related to the c-Met/hepatocyte growth factor, as well as potential for novel therapeutic inhibition. Aside from expertise in tyrosine kinases, cytoskeletal regulation, topoisomerase-I, and downstream signal transduction molecules, Dr. Salgia has begun to study the role of heat shock proteins in lung cancer, as well as the role of reactive oxygen species in lung cancer.
At the U of C, Dr. Salgia is the Director of the Thoracic Oncology Research Program, and is an Associate Professor of Medicine. He is also the leader of the Aerodigestive Working Group within the UCCRC and oversees translational research for thoracic oncology at the U of C. He is also the head of the Aerodigestive Tract Program Translational Research Laboratories at the U of C. He has been instrumental in organizing the thoracic oncology program at the University of Chicago and is the PI for the “Dean’s Initiative” in thoracic oncology. The “Dean’s Initiative” is a focused, well-funded program (described in section B11a) in lung cancer care and translational research. The goals are to enhance patient care, arrive at state-of-the-art therapy, integrate multi-modality therapy, and perform translational research in lung cancer. Since his move to the University of Chicago, he has been extraordinarily instrumental in bringing investigators together from a number of fields to work on the problems of lung cancer. He believes strongly in the value of collaborative research that attracts researchers from other institutions.
Dr. Salgia is very prolific and has published numerous articles, has been invited to present at many national and international conferences, helped to organize a number of conferences, and is an NIH-funded investigator.
