About
Dr. Shields' career has been dedicated to clinical research and the care of patients with colorectal, pancreatic and other gastrointestinal cancers. His experiences in research and the clinic make him painfully aware of the need to develop new approaches in understanding and overcoming resistance to treatment for patients with GI cancer. At Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne University School of Medicine he leads clinical research efforts through his roles as the Associate Center Director for Clinical Sciences, Program Leader in Molecular Imaging and Diagnostics and Professor of Oncology and Medicine. Dr. Shields training as a Medical Oncologist provides the insight to guide studies in patients with cancer and the foresight to design trials that are appropriate. He has a broad understanding in clinical sciences with experience that spans from protocol design and development to implementation from the local to the national level. He is the sub-chair for colorectal cancer at the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG), and co-chair for a national adjuvant colon cancer study sponsored by the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) and SWOG. He serves on the NCI Colon Task Force, which is charged with overseeing clinical research studies in colorectal cancer, and has served on the NCI Investigational Drug Steering Committee. In the clinic, his work concentrates on the treatment of patients with gastrointestinal (GI) cancer and he continues to develop and lead new clinical trials for GI tumors. This includes serving as a founding faculty member of the Clinical Trials Methodology Workshop under the sponsorships of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and the National Cancer Institute, which is designed to mentor new faculty. As an Associate Center Director for Clinical Sciences, and member of the Human Investigation Committee Review Board, he helps to oversee a large number of clinical studies within our Institute and comprehends the complexities and challenges of the approaches to successful evaluation of new agents. Dr. Shields clearly has a crucial role in the design of cancer clinical trials. His laboratory research focuses on the development and testing of tracers for use with positron emission tomography (PET) for the assessment of a variety of tumors (e.g. brain, lung, breast, and prostate cancers) and their response to treatment. Dr. Shields led the development of FLT {3'-deoxy-3'-fluorothymidine}; a promising tracer for tumor proliferation, which has received an IND from the FDA and is being tested in centers worldwide. He serves on the Steering Committee of the American College of Radiology (ACRIN) and the National Oncology PET Registry (NOPR) and works to incorporate innovative imaging in the multicenter clinical trials. He is Senior Editor for Molecular Imaging and Biology and the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, and a reviewer for a number of journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Medicine, and The Journal of Clinical Oncology. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles and more than 20 book chapters, reviews and case reports on cancer research.