Robert J. Mayer, MD
Stephen B. Kay Family Professor of Medicine
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
AB Williams College
MD Harvard Medical School
Following graduation from medical school, I spent two years as a medical resident at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and three years as a clinical associate at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. I returned to Boston in 1974 to be on the “ground floor” of the emerging Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where I have remained ever since. My academic interest in gastrointestinal cancer in general and pancreatic cancer in particular is longstanding. Beyond my work with the National Pancreas Foundation, I serve as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research. During my career, I have served as President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Associate Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Chair of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Committee of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, and a member of the Executive Committee of the American Board of Internal Medicine.
I am a long-term admirer of Jane Holt and very much wanted in the past and continue to desire to support her efforts and those of others in developing this wonderful organization. Until relatively recently, the pancreas, as a site of disease, received woefully little attention in terms of research support and patient advocacy. Through organizations such as the NPF, this is rapidly changing.
My family and I have a passion for the Berkshire hills where we have a weekend home. My wife is the past director of the Department of Social Work at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Our two daughters, who are both married and who each have two children, are based in Newton (a breast oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) and New York City (an art media consultant for a firm called Ruder Finn which deals with museums, architecture, and the like). I have a longstanding interest in music and am a Trustee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
