2022 McNair Scholar Supported by $2.4 Million Gift from The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation and McNair Medical Institute

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced the 2022 McNair Scholar, Chirag Patel, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Neuro-Oncology. Patel’s work will be supported by the McNair Medical Institute at The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation. The up-and-coming physician scientist’s interdisciplinary and translational laboratory focuses on the biology of glioblastoma, the most common and lethal form of primary brain cancer in adults. Patel and his team will investigate novel therapeutic strategies in pre-clinical models.   

“We are proud to support MD Anderson and early career physician scientists like Dr. Patel, who are committed to research that will move findings from translational research into viable solutions for health care as quickly as possible,” said Kristi Cooper, executive director of The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation. “By delving into the brain’s impact on disease at the cellular messaging level, future McNair Scholars will take a relatively uncharted look at the breakdown of cellular communications.”  

As a McNair Scholar supported by the McNair Medical Institute at The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, Patel will lead his team in the study of therapeutic alternating electric fields, which have been shown to work in concert with traditional chemotherapy and radiation therapy to better impair cancer growth, with the hope of ultimately improving outcomes for patients with brain tumors. He previously demonstrated that electric fields permeabilize the membranes of cancer cells in a selective and reversible manner, a finding that could be leveraged to improve both cancer therapy and biomarker detection.   

“Brain tumors have been notoriously challenging to treat and the prognosis remains grim for most patients with these tumors. There have been only incremental gains in recent years using conventional treatment, despite large investments in lab and clinical research. A paradigm shift in our approach to these tumors is urgently needed,” said Vinay Puduvalli, M.D., chair of Neuro-Oncology. “It is in this context that recruiting physician scientists like Dr. Chirag Patel, who have training in both neuro-oncology as well as biomedical engineering, can bring fresh perspectives into the field and allow us to think outside of the box.”  

A native Houstonian, Patel earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from John Hopkins University. He then graduated from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and UTHealth Houston McGovern Medical School with a medical degree and doctorate. Patel completed an adult neurology residency at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. His clinical fellowship training in neuro-oncology and postdoctoral fellowship research in multimodal molecular imaging took place at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he stayed on as faculty in the departments of Neurology and Radiology, prior to being recruited to MD Anderson.  

“I am excited to join the incredibly innovative and passionate minds at MD Anderson,” said Patel, an assistant professor and McNair Scholar. “It is an honor to join in the mission to end cancer and I remain grateful for the generous support of the McNair Foundation that will allow us to pursue this most important work.”  

McNair Scholars have been generously supported at MD Anderson by the McNair Medical Institute at The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation since 2008. With the help of the foundation, MD Anderson has been able to support several McNair Scholars as part of our larger physician-scientist program, which spans seven clinical divisions:   

• Surgery 
• Medicine 
• Radiation Oncology 
• Cancer Prevention 
• Pediatrics 
• Internal Medicine 
• Pathology and Laboratory Medicine  

“The McNair Scholars Program is a transformative gift to MD Anderson and Houston because it allows us to recruit the world’s brightest physician-scientists and harness the broader strengths of the Texas Medical Center,” said Darrow Zeidenstein, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief development officer. “The success of our McNair Scholars means better, innovative treatments for cancer patients and their families, now and in the future.”