Akash Patnaik, MD, PhD, MMSc

Principal Investigator

Dr. Patnaik is a medical oncologist and physician-scientist who leads a translational research program (laboratory and clinical trials) in prostate cancer at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is Associate Professor of Medicine and Deputy Section Chief for Translational Research within the Section of Hematology/Oncology at University of Chicago. He also serves as Program Leader for the Clinical & Experimental Therapeutics Program at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCCCC). In the context of these leadership roles, Dr. Patnaik is focused on expanding the breadth and depth of translational research within the Section and UCCCC. This includes enhancing translational team science collaborations across the Section and UCCCC, catalyzing program project grants and strengthening academic-industry research partnerships to facilitate both pre-clinical and investigator-initiated clinical trial collaborations across disease programs. He also serves as Chair for the junior faculty mentoring committee within the Section of Hematology/Oncology.

Dr. Patnaik’s translational research to-date has provided significant insight into the mechanistic basis for immunotherapy resistance in aggressive-variant prostate cancer (AVPC). His work has led to the development of several therapeutic strategies to enhance myeloid innate immunity in genetically defined murine models of AVPC and translated these discoveries into several clinical trials, for which he serves as PI or co-PI/national correlative science chair. He is a recipient of numerous research grants/awards, including the National Cancer Institute R01, V Foundation Translational Research Award, 2 Prostate Cancer Foundation Challenge Awards and industry funding to support his work. He serves as Deputy Editor for Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) journal, a leadership role he has held since 2019. He also serves on several national grant review committees for the NCI, ASCO and DOD, as well as AACR Annual Meeting Program Committees.