Jean-Francois (Jeff) Geschwind, M.D. ’91 – 2011 Distinguished Alumnus Award

Jeff Geschwind, M.D., is Professor of Radiology, Surgery and Oncology and the Director of the Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the Director of the Interventional Radiology Center at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

A native of France, Dr. Geschwind received his medical degree from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine in 1991. He completed his residency training as a Research Scholar (sponsored by the NIH) in diagnostic radiology at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), where his research focused on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. He completed his training in Vascular and Interventional Radiology at Johns Hopkins and joined the faculty in 1998 as an assistant professor.

He was appointed Director of the Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology and of the Interventional Radiology Center at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2002 and was promoted to Professor of Radiology, Surgery and Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2007.

Dr. Geschwind focused his clinical expertise on treating hepatic cancer and other malignancies, and created the Center of Oncologic Interventions. Radiology’s focus is rapidly shifting from diagnosis to image-guided treatment and he is at the forefront of that change. Focused on finding new therapies for liver cancer, he is working on a new approach using drugs designed to specifically block tumor metabolism in cancer cells.

This research was partially funded through an RO1 grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute. He received a $1.4 million philanthropic donation to support his research in this field and founded a company based on this technology. He has raised $3M towards the goal of starting Phase I clinical trials for liver cancer. He has continued to improve current therapies for patients with liver cancer, in particular catheter-based therapies such as chemoembolization and radioembolization, and is considered a key opinion leader in the field of liver cancer.

Dr. Geschwind has lectured both nationally and internationally on the clinical management of patients with liver cancer. He was visiting Professor at many prestigious institutions throughout the world such as MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Yonsei University and Seoul National University in Seoul, and Chinese University of Hong Kong; and gave the keynote address at many international conferences (India, Israel, Japan, Korea, China, Argentina, England, South Africa).

Dr. Geschwind has authored or co-authored more than 300 published scientific articles and abstracts on interventional oncology and specifically the treatment of liver cancer. He co-authored the first book dedicated to interventional oncology titled “Interventional Oncology Principles and Practice” and has contributed many chapters on interventional oncology to some of the most prestigious books in Oncology and Radiology.

He has also won numerous national and international awards, including the Alexander Margulis Society Excellence in Research Award from UCSF, the Annual Memorial Award from the Association of University Radiologists and the Dr. Gary J. Becker Young Investigator Award from the Society of Interventional Radiologists. He has been named American Roentgen Ray Society Scholar, which allowed him to pursue a master’s program in molecular biology at Johns Hopkins, and he received the Society’s 2003 Certificate of Merit. More recently, he was awarded the Merit Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology for pioneering work in the field of drug delivery for liver cancer.

Dr. Geschwind serves as the Deputy Editor of the Journal Radiology, which has long been recognized as the premier radiology journal and is on several Editorial Boards including the main interventional radiology journal Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology. He is a member of the Advisory Board of various companies including Bayer Healthcare, Genentech, Nordion, Biocompatibles, Guerbet and Philips Medical Systems.

He is a founding member of the International Liver Cancer Association and is an active member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Association for Cancer Research, the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, the Radiology Society of North America, the Society of Interventional Radiology, the American Roentgen Ray Society, the Association of University Radiologists and the Cardiovascular and Interventional Society of Europe.