John M. Kirkwood, MD

John M. Kirkwood, MD, is a Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Dermatology, and Translational Science and The Sandra and Thomas Usher Endowed Chair in Melanoma at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr Kirkwood received his MD at Yale University (1973) and completed postgraduate work at Harvard Medical School/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (1978). He served as the founding associate director and chief of medical oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Hillman Cancer Center, where he has directed the Melanoma and Skin Cancer Program since 1986, serving as principal investigator (PI) of the Melanoma and Skin Cancer Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center (2008-2019) and co-PI for the SPORE renewal (2021-2026).

He has held T32 training grants for medical oncology and for melanoma and skin cancer. He is PI for the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group at the University of Pittsburgh and co-PI of the Lead Academic Participating Site (LAPS) at the University of Pittsburgh (2019-present). In addition, Dr Kirkwood has previously served as chairman of the ECOG-ACRIN Melanoma Committee (1989-2019) and is currently serving as the ECOG-ACRIN Prevention Subcommittee chair and the ECOG-ACRIN Prevention and Early Detection chair (2019-present). He also chairs the International Melanoma Working Group (2004-present) and the Regional Melanoma Consortium (2014-present), bringing new collaborative trials to the region.

Dr Kirkwood’s research focuses on immunotherapy and molecular therapy for advanced melanoma, the development of adjuvant therapies, and the therapeutic prevention and early detection of melanoma. He has led more than 300 trials of investigational therapy, with an emphasis on immunotherapy and molecular/immunological translational research.

He was elected to the Association of American Physicians in 2015 and the Giants of Cancer Care in 2016. Dr Kirkwood is a member of multiple professional organizations, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Association for Cancer Research, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, and the Society for Melanoma Research.