James W. Welsh, MD, is a Tenured Physician-Scientist at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Welsh started his oncology career in the Department of Molecular Oncology at Genentech Inc., at an exciting time when some of the first personalized target therapies were developed. While at Genentech he helped to discover and clone the Wnt-Induced secreted proteins (WISP) family of oncogenes as well as the development of some of the first targeted therapies, including trastuzumab (Herceptin). He later attended Dartmouth Medical School and completed a residency in radiation oncology at the University of Arizona, where he helped develop a novel drug targeting c-Met kinase (MP-470). 

At MD Anderson he is the director of the immune radiation program, which has the goal of using radiation to turn the tumor into an “in-situ” vaccine in order to prime T cells, turning radiation into a systemic therapy. Being able to both see patients and run a lab has provided insights on how to improve patient care which has resulted in the founding of three new companies Healios Oncology, MolecularMatch, and OncoResponse. MolecularMatch is founded on a belief that patients and doctors should have free real-time access to which drugs and trials are best matched to them based on their unique genomic information. Dr. Welsh's research includes over 5,220 Citations, 108 Articles and 6 Chapters.