DUARTE, Calif., September 4, 2008 — Prominent colorectal surgeon Julio Garcia-Aguilar, M.D., Ph.D., has been named chair of City of Hope’s Department of Surgery. He oversees one of the largest academic departments at City of Hope that strives to improve the quality of traditional surgery as well as that of minimally invasive and robotically-assisted surgical procedures. Garcia-Aguilar has extensive experience in the treatment of colon and rectal cancers, including pioneering laparoscopic surgical techniques and conducting research to improve outcomes for patients with these cancers.
Garcia-Aguilar joined City of Hope from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he was professor of surgery and chief of the Section of Colon and Rectal Surgery. He also served as surgeon-in-chief of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Prior to UCSF, Garcia-Aguilar was an associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s colon and rectal surgery program. Before that, he served as the chief resident in surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he had begun his career as a surgical resident.
“Dr. Garcia-Aguilar will be an important asset to City of Hope and our patients,” said Alexandra Levine, M.D., chief medical officer. “He has a proven record as an investigator, physician, collaborator and mentor, and he brings a spirit of collaboration and scientific excellence that matches our institutional vision as we build for the future.”
Garcia-Aguilar’s research interests focus on neoadjuvant and combined therapies for rectal cancer — the use of radiation therapy and chemotherapy to shrink rectal tumors before surgery. As principal investigator on a $3.1 million National Institutes of Health grant, he is studying whether certain patients respond well enough to chemotherapy and radiation therapy alone that they may be able to avoid surgery altogether. Avoiding the need for surgery may improve a patient’s quality of life by reducing potential complications and lowering health-care costs. He is also the principal investigator of a multicenter study sponsored by the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group that is evaluating whether some early stage rectal cancer patients can be treated with a surgical procedure that removes only the tumor after chemotherapy and radiation therapy instead of the current standard procedure that removes the entire rectum and surrounding tissue. Additionally, he is working on identifying possible genetic markers
linked to rectal cancer that may potentially help personalize the therapies a patient receives to most effectively treat his or her specific type of cancer.
Garcia-Aguilar has published more than 60 research papers and edited three books, as well as other publications, and is a frequent invited speaker at medical centers and conferences throughout the world. In addition to serving as a reviewer for numerous journals, he is co-editor of Diseases of the Colon and Rectum. He also serves as a member of the board of trustees of the research foundation for the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons.
A native of Spain, Garcia-Aguilar completed his medical education and residency in surgery at Madrid College of Physicians in 1985. He then served as a surgical resident at Beth Israel Hospital and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University before returning to Spain and obtaining his doctorate from the Madrid College of Physicians.