John P. Perentesis, MD, FAAP

My career is focused on the development and implementation of new therapies and technologies for treating high-risk and relapsed pediatric and young adult cancers.

I have been the Chief of Oncology and Executive Co-Director of the Cincinnati Children's Cancer/Blood Institute since 2011 and Director of the cancer programs since 2002. I hold the Deb Kleisinger Endowed Chair for New Cancer Therapies and am a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati.

I have strong direct mentoring efforts with a 36-member academic faculty spanning translational clinical oncologists, laboratory-based scientists, proton therapy physicists, and physician-scientists. My clinical research program focuses on early cancer therapeutic trials, and my laboratory program focuses on the development of molecularly targeted leukemia therapies, pharmacogenomics of cancer treatment, and novel approaches to cancer proton radiotherapy.

In pediatric and young adult cancer genomics, my laboratory conducted and published the first large-scale studies analyzing over 800 patients with leukemia for RAS mutations as part of NIH-funded efforts to study childhood cancer etiology and outcomes. My laboratory has also developed and licensed novel recombinant anticancer drugs and has identified key genes involved in cellular regulation. I lead a multi-investigator program research contract testing ultra-high dose FLASH proton radiotherapy and am the co-Principal Investigator of the first human clinical trial of FLASH.

For the National Cancer Institute, I serve as a member of the Investigational Drug Development Steering Committee, an initiative to identify and prioritize new agent development for both adults and children. In the NCI’s pediatric clinic research consortium – the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) – I am the immediate past vice-chair of the adolescent and young adult cancer steering committee, am currently a nationally elected member of the COG hematology/oncology steering committee and have previously served as a nationally elected member of the executive committee.

I have trained multiple fellows in our program, and mentored oncologists and fellows within my division and from other institutions in the development of translational research clinical and laboratory careers. I also served as co-director of our ACGME-accredited hematology/oncology fellowship program at Cincinnati Children's, and I am currently co-director of both our GME-accredited Adolescent/Young Adult Oncology, and Developmental Therapeutics training programs.