Jeffrey Jeff S. Weber, MD, PhD, who was a professor of oncology at New York University, has passed away.
He was a committed Professor that was loved and cherished both by the students and fellow colleagues. He died after a variant battle with pancreatic cancer.
There has been a considerable advancement in both the understanding of melanoma and the treatment of it as a result of Dr. Weber’s outstanding career in oncology. In the present moment, he is working at NYU Langone Health as the deputy director of the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center.
Not only does he serve in this capacity, but he is also the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Oncology in the Department of Medicine at the Grossman School of Medicine at New York University (NYU).
He is also a co-leader on the Clinical Melanoma Program Board at NYU Langone Health, in addition to being the director of the Experimental Therapeutics Program at NYU Langone Health.
The road that Dr. Weber took in the field of medicine started with a strong academic foundation. In 1979, he was awarded a doctoral degree from Rockefeller University, and in 1980, he finished his medical degree at New York University.
After that, he went on to complete a residency at the University of California, San Diego, which he did in 1983. After that, he continued his specialization by completing a fellowship in medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute, which he did in 1986.
Dr. Weber served as the head of the Donald A. Adam Comprehensive Melanoma Research Center at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, beginning in 2007. Prior to joining NYU Langone Health in 2015, he held this position from 2007 until 2015. He has also held prominent positions in the academic world and in clinical research during his career. In addition to his work as a professor and researcher at the University of California, Irvine, he was also the head of the Medical Oncology department at the University of Southern California (USC). Moreover, he served as the associate director of Clinical Research at the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
One of the most important contributions that Dr. Weber has made to the treatment of melanoma is his participation in a pivotal phase 3 clinical trial (NCT00094653) with other researchers. This experiment indicated that treatment with ipilimumab (Yervoy), either alone or in combination with a gp100 peptide vaccine, significantly increased overall survival in patients with unresectable stage III or IV melanoma when compared to treatment with the gp100 peptide vaccine alone. This was the case regardless of whether the medication was administered alone or in combination with the vaccine. The results of this ground-breaking research have had a significant influence on the outcomes for patients and have contributed significantly to the advancement of immunotherapy for melanoma.