Chad V. Pecot, MD
Dr. Chad Pecot is a thoracic medical oncologist at UNC Health and Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He specializes in lung cancer and abnormal tumors inside the chest, including malignant pleural mesothelioma. He chose lung cancer as a specialty because of its lethality, and he is grateful that through research, patients are being provided with more hope.[1]
Dr. Pecot had been a bioengineering student in college when he went through his own metastatic cancer journey at the age of twenty. His diagnosis changed the trajectory of his life and drove him to want to care for patients going through what he had gone through. He carries his bioengineering background into the research that he does today.
Dr. Pecot believes in tailoring his approach to each patient’s values and priorities, making sure that they know what is going on inside their body and that they fully understand the options available to them.
Education and Career
Dr. Pecot pursued his medical education after graduating with honors from the University of Miami with a degree in Biomedical Engineering. He earned his medical degree at the University of Miami Medical School, then went on to complete his internship and residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He completed a fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he was honored by being named Chief Fellow, and remained at MD Anderson to follow up with a fellowship and chief fellowship in Thoracic Medical Oncology.[1]
Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology, today Dr. Pecot is a Professor in the Division of Oncology and UNC Medical School and Co-Leader of the UNC Lineberger Molecular Therapeutics Research Program. He is also the Director of the UNC RNA Discovery Center.
Research
Dr. Pecot calls himself a physician-scientist because he both takes care of patients and runs his own research laboratory. He is passionate about advancing cancer treatment and bringing new tools and new therapies to his patients. His laboratory is focused on metastasis because medical science’s inability to control cancer’s spread is what leads to the death of nearly all patients. His lab’s goal is to develop therapeutic strategies that attack cancer’s weaknesses by examining the role of lymphatics, non-coding RNAs, inflammatory monocytes, and tumor angiogenesis in metastasis. Nearly all of his lab’s projects involve studying pathways that have been identified as “undruggable” and utilizing RNA interference approaches to develop novel therapeutics.[2]
To date, his research career has led to several high-impact discoveries and he has been the recipient of several grants, including a $1.8 million lung cancer research grant from the National Cancer Institute to investigate the roles circular RNA may have in regulating whether a form of lung cancer will spread beyond the original cancer site, and a $100,000 grant from the Lung Cancer Initiative to support his research into the mechanistic and therapeutic implications of co-targeting two genes linked to lung cancer.[1]
Awards and Honors
- Lung Cancer Initiative Alumni Supplemental Grant, 2023
- University of North Carolina UCRF Innovator Award, 2019
- Susan G. Komen Career Catalyst Award, 2017
- Free to Breathe Metastasis Research Award, 2016
- Stuart Scott V Foundation/Lung Cancer Initiative Award for Clinical Research, 2016
- William Rippe Award for Distinguished Research in Lung Cancer, 2016
- Lung Cancer Research Foundation Award, 2016
- ASCO Conquer Cancer Foundation Scientific Career Development Retreat, 2016
- Division of Cancer Medicine Achievement in Basic Science Research, 2012
