Kevan L. Hartshorn, MD

Emeritus Professor, Medicine

Kevan Hartshorn
617.638.5638
650 Albany St Evans Biomed Research Ctr

Biography

I am a Medical Oncologist Boston University Medical Center with principle focus on solid tumors. I am Director of the Hematology/Oncology Fellowship program at Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine for 18 years and also on-site PI for multicenter clinical trials of chemotherapy and targeted agents for various cancers. I participates in cooperative clinical trials groups (NSABP, SWOG, Alliance, and AIDs Clinical Trials group) and to a lesser extent in industry related clinical trials. I did my clinical training in Internal Medicine at Boston City Hospital and then did Fellowship training in Hematology/Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. After this I joined the Attending staff at Boston City Hospital and feel very devoted to the mission of Boston Medical Center (the name of the Hospital formed by the merger of Boston City Hospital and Boston University Hospital). This mission is to provide, “Exceptional Care Without Exception”. Boston Medical Center is the main safety net hospital for the city of Boston and prides itself on providing cutting edge care to patient’s regardless or economic or social status. The hospital cares for a large population of African American and immigrant patients and has developed a number of special services (e.g. care navigators) to under-served patients get the care they need. In addition to the above clinical research interests, I have a particular interest in Geriatric Oncology and shared in developing a clinical Fellowship in Geriatric Oncology here which has now been in existence for about 10 years. I have a long standing interest in health care disparities as well. I have mentored numerous Fellows, Medical Students, Residents and College and High School students over the years in clinical care, clinical research and basic research.

In addition to my clinical interests have a laboratory research program related to innate immunology have had continuous NIH grant support for 30 years. Our research principally deals with innate immunity, which refers to immune responses that are hard-wired into the genome and provide a first line of protection against infection or transformed cells. Innate immune responses are sometimes also responsible for damaging inflammation. Defects or variants in innate immunity account for increased propensity for infections or harmful inflammation. As an example, people lacking one of the collectins found in blood are at greater risk for infection during neutropenia and have a greater risk for certain cancers. There is surprising complexity and specificity to innate immunity despite the fact that it provides protection even when a person has not been exposed to a specific infection. The main aspects of innate immunity we study include neutrophils and monocyte/macrophages, toll like receptors, and soluble immune defense proteins called collectins and defensins. We study how neutrophils and monocytes become activated in response to infectious organisms (viruses and bacteria), including studies of cell signaling, phagocytosis and oxidant production. We study how defensins and collectins kill bacteria or viruses and promote their uptake by neutrophils and monocytes. We have created or collaborate to create and test a variety of new recombinant versions of collectins and defensins, some of which have strongly increased antiviral or antibacterial activity. We also collaborate with members of the department of Biophysics in crystallographic studies of collectin structure in order to predict protein changes that might confer greater antimicrobial activity. We also collaborate in use of mouse models (e.g., mice in which collectin genes are deleted) to study the role of specific innate immune mediators in infection. A particular area of interest for us is the innate immune response to respiratory infection, especially influenza virus infection. Influenza virus and HIV (which we also study to some extent) are important examples of infections for which innate immunity is important since these viruses undergo continuous mutation thus evading adaptive immune responses (i.e., specific T and B cell responses).

Education

  • Albert Einstein College of Medicine, MD
  • Williams College, MA
  • Williams College, BA

Publications

  • Published on 4/28/2023

    Singh S, Zhao Q, Sachs TE, Hartshorn K. Reporting a Case of Solid Pseudopapillary Neoplasm of the Pancreas in a 44-Year-Old Woman with Parallel Analysis of Literature. Case Rep Oncol Med. 2023; 2023:1768926. PMID: 37153719.

    Read at: PubMed
  • Published on 4/27/2023

    Lazzaro A, Hartshorn KL. A Comprehensive Narrative Review on the History, Current Landscape, and Future Directions of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) Systemic Therapy. Cancers (Basel). 2023 Apr 27; 15(9). PMID: 37173972.

    Read at: PubMed
  • Published on 3/14/2022

    Alymova IV, Cipollo JF, Parsons LM, Music N, Kamal RP, Tzeng WP, Goldsmith CS, Contessa JN, Hartshorn KL, Wilson JR, Zeng H, Gansebom S, York IA. Aberrant Cellular Glycosylation May Increase the Ability of Influenza Viruses to Escape Host Immune Responses through Modification of the Viral Glycome. mBio. 2022 Apr 26; 13(2):e0298321. PMID: 35285699.

    Read at: PubMed
  • Published on 12/8/2021

    White MR, Nikolaidis NM, McCormack F, Crouch EC, Hartshorn KL. Viral Evasion of Innate Immune Defense: The Case of Resistance of Pandemic H1N1 Influenza A Virus to Human Mannose-Binding Proteins. Front Microbiol. 2021; 12:774711. PMID: 34956139.

    Read at: PubMed
  • Published on 7/8/2021

    Boehmer U, Ozonoff A, Winter M, Berklein F, Potter J, Hartshorn KL, Ward KC, Ceballos RM, Clark MA. Health-related quality of life among colorectal cancer survivors of diverse sexual orientations. Cancer. 2021 10 15; 127(20):3847-3855. PMID: 34237147.

    Read at: PubMed
  • Published on 4/14/2021

    Boehmer U, Potter J, Clark MA, Winter M, Berklein F, Ceballos RM, Hartshorn K, Ozonoff A. Follow-up surveillance among colorectal cancer survivors of different sexual orientations. J Cancer Surviv. 2022 Apr; 16(2):445-454. PMID: 33851339.

    Read at: PubMed
  • Published on 3/19/2021

    Boehmer U, Potter J, Clark MA, Ozonoff A, Winter M, Berklein F, Ward KC, Hartshorn K. Assessing the relationship between symptoms and health care utilization in colorectal cancer survivors of different sexual orientations. Support Care Cancer. 2021 Oct; 29(10):5821-5830. PMID: 33742243.

    Read at: PubMed
  • Published on 2/26/2021

    Hsieh IN, White M, Hoeksema M, Deluna X, Hartshorn K. Histone H4 potentiates neutrophil inflammatory responses to influenza A virus: Down-modulation by H4 binding to C-reactive protein and Surfactant protein D. PLoS One. 2021; 16(2):e0247605. PMID: 33635872.

    Read at: PubMed
  • Published on 12/10/2020

    Ando K, Ozonoff A, Lee SY, Voisine M, Parker JT, Nakanishi R, Nishimura S, Yang J, Grace Z, Tran B, Diefenbach TJ, Maehara Y, Yasui H, Irino T, Salgia R, Terashima M, Gibbs P, Ramanathan RK, Oki E, Mori M, Kulke M, Hartshorn K, Bharti A. Multicohort Retrospective Validation of a Predictive Biomarker for Topoisomerase I Inhibitors. Clin Colorectal Cancer. 2021 06; 20(2):e129-e138. PMID: 33731288.

    Read at: PubMed
  • Published on 11/17/2020

    White MR, Hsieh IN, De Luna X, Hartshorn KL. Effects of serum amyloid protein A on influenza A virus replication and viral interactions with neutrophils. J Leukoc Biol. 2021 07; 110(1):155-166. PMID: 33205458.

    Read at: PubMed

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