Manish Patel, DO
Dr. Manish Patel is a hematologist and oncologist at the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota. His clinical interest focuses on malignant pleural mesothelioma, as well as head and neck cancers and thoracic malignancies. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation at the University of Minnesota Medical School and the Associate Program Director for the Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation fellowship program at the University of Minnesota. He also leads the experimental therapeutics phase I clinical program at the University of Minnesota.[1]
Education and Career
Dr. Patel earned a bachelor of science in Molecular Biology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, then attended the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he earned a Doctor of Osteopathy degree. Following his graduation from Kirksville he completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University and then completed a clinical research fellowship at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, New York.
Upon completion of his research fellowship, Dr. Patel joined the Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation fellowship at the University of Minnesota, becoming a faculty member and physician-scientist. Dr. Patel is a member of the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation’s Science Advisory Board and a board member of A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation. He is also a member of the American Association of Cancer Research, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.[]
Research Interests
Dr. Patel has dedicated his career to improving treatments for malignant mesothelioma and lung cancer, translating findings from his laboratory into clinical trials. His particular research interest is the potential for live viruses to be used as a therapy for lung cancer. During his training, he found that abnormalities in cancer cells can allow viruses to grow within them and kill them, and found that vesicular stomatitis virus could be engineered so that cancer cells would allow replication of the virus, allowing it to effectively kill cancer cells without harming normal cells. He is now working to bring this therapy to clinical trials for lung cancer, using blood outgrowth endothelial cells to carry the virus to the tumor. It is hoped that this “Trojan Horse” approach will allow for effective virus therapy for metastatic lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma.[2]
