Joshua D. Schiffman

Biography

Joshua Schiffman, M.D., is an Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences in the School of Medicine at the University of Utah. He is an investigator in the Huntsman Cancer Institute and a member of the Nuclear Control of Cell Growth and Differentiation program. Since 2008, Dr. Schiffman has served as the Medical Director of the High Risk Pediatric Cancer Clinic, which is run through both Primary Children’s Medical Center and Huntsman Cancer Institute. He is the Education Director for the Program in Personalized Health Care at the University of Utah, and he oversaw the Translational Oncology Core (TOC) at HCI, which analyzes clinical samples from patients to identify targetable changes in tumors.   Dr. Schiffman is dedicated to translating biological and genomic discoveries into clinical advances for patients. His research emphasis is cancer susceptibility in families, with a focus on the genomic changes underlying pediatric cancer development. He is pursuing copy number changes related to leukemia and sarcoma development, and functional assays related to risk of hereditary cancers. He is involved with the Utah Population Database (UPDB) to understand the risk factors associated with cancer development in children and their families. Dr. Schiffman runs a translational genomics research laboratory, where he combines both epidemiological and comparative oncology perspectives to advance the understanding of why children develop cancer. Dr. Schiffman is a member of several national and international research cooperative groups related to cancer risk and genetic epidemiology. He is also the Principal Investigator of the Cancer Genetics Study (CGS) which enrolls high risk families for genomic analysis.   Schiffman earned his MD from Brown University, and completed his Pediatric Residency, Pediatric Chief Residency, and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at Stanford University, where he then served as an Instructor and directed the Pediatric Cancer Genetics Clinic (PCGC). In 2008, he joined the University of Utah as an Instructor, as well as an Investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute. Within one year, he had risen to Assistant Professor in Pediatrics, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012. Dr. Schiffman has written more than 150 publications, scientific papers, chapters, and abstracts.

Research Interest

Cancer Genetics Familial Cancer Susceptibility Li-Fraumeni Syndrome TP53 Mutation Ewing's Sarcoma Sarcoma Leukemia Paraganglioma