Sanford (Sandy) Dawsey, MD

Location: 

Washington DC area, US

Title: 

Retired Senior Investigator from the National Cancer Institute

Foundation Role: 

President, Board of Directors

Dr. Dawsey recently retired as a Senior Investigator at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, where he worked for 36 years. During his time at NIH, his main focus was the prevention and control of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). He performed multiple studies in China, Iran, Brazil and East Africa to understand the etiology of this cancer globally in high-risk populations, and he helped develop clinically useful early detection and treatment techniques for this disease. With US and Chinese colleagues, he developed an endoscopic early detection and treatment program for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma that is now used in a national program to screen over 200,000 adults annually in high-risk areas of China, and this program has been shown to reduce ESCC mortality by ~33% over 10 years. Most recently, he was a founding member of the African Esophageal Cancer Consortium (AfrECC), which was created to perform coordinated etiologic, early detection and treatment, and palliation studies to try to reduce the burden of ESCC in Africa. He is currently President of the Board of the African Esophageal Cancer Consortium Foundation. Dr. Dawsey has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Harvard University and a Doctor of Medicine Degree from Stanford University.