Avrum E. Spira, MD

Alexander Graham Bell Professor in Health Care Entrepreneurship, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

Dr. Spira is a Professor of Medicine, Pathology and Bioinformatics, and the Alexander Graham Bell Professor in Health Care Entrepreneurship at Boston University. He is founding Chief of the Division of Computational Biomedicine in the Department of Medicine and Director of the Boston University – Boston Medical Center Cancer Center. He is also an attending physician in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Boston Medical Center.

Dr. Spira is also the Global Head of the Lung Cancer Initiative (LCI) at Johnson & Johnson, which is developing solutions to prevent, intercept and cure lung cancer.

Dr. Spira obtained his MD from McGill University in Montreal, and completed his Internal medicine residency at the University of Toronto and his fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at BMC. During his fellowship, Dr. Spira obtained a master’s degree in Bioinformatics from Boston University.

Since his 2003 appointment to the BU faculty, Dr. Spira has built a translational research program that focuses on genomic alterations associated with smoking-related lung disease, leading to a molecular test for the early detection of lung cancer that has successfully translated into the clinic (PerceptaTM) as well as a novel therapeutic for COPD that is in preclinical development. His research program is based on the paradigm that smoking and other inhaled carcinogens create a ‘field of molecular injury’ in epithelial cells that line the respiratory tract. By sampling these relatively accessible airway cells, Dr. Spira’s lab has developed novel diagnostic and therapeutic biomarkers for lung cancer and COPD as well as a non-invasive approach for measuring the physiological response to a number of inhaled environmental exposures. He has co-founded both a molecular diagnostics company and a pharmaceutical company in order to translate these tools from “bench to bedside”.

He serves as Principal Investigator on grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI); National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the Department of Defense (DoD), and has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Spira was a permanent member of the NIH’s Cancer Biomarker Study Section (CBSS) and currently serves as Senior Editor at Cancer Prevention Research as well as Associate Editor at the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. He was elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in 2010 and a member of the Association of American Physicians (AAP) in 2017.

Publications

  • Published 5/8/2025

    Zhu B, Chen P, Aminu M, Li JR, Fujimoto J, Tian Y, Hong L, Chen H, Hu X, Li C, Vokes N, Moreira AL, Gibbons DL, Solis Soto LM, Parra Cuentas ER, Shi O, Diao S, Ye J, Rojas FR, Vilar E, Maitra A, Chen K, Navin N, Nilsson M, Huang B, Heeke S, Zhang J, Haymaker CL, Velcheti V, Sterman DH, Kochat V, Padron WI, Alexandrov LB, Wei Z, Le X, Wang L, Fukuoka J, Lee JJ, Wistuba II, Pass HI, Davis M, Hanash S, Cheng C, Dubinett S, Spira A, Rai K, Lippman SM, Futreal PA, Heymach JV, Reuben A, Wu J, Zhang J. Spatial and multiomics analysis of human and mouse lung adenocarcinoma precursors reveals TIM-3 as a putative target for precancer interception. Cancer Cell. 2025 May 08. PMID: 40345189.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 2/24/2025

    Mazzilli SA, Rahal Z, Rouhani MJ, Janes SM, Kadara H, Dubinett SM, Spira AE. Translating premalignant biology to accelerate non-small-cell lung cancer interception. Nat Rev Cancer. 2025 May; 25(5):379-392. PMID: 39994467.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 2/5/2025

    Ning B, Chiu DJ, Pfefferkorn RM, Kefella Y, Kane E, Reyes-Ortiz V, Liu G, Zhang S, Liu H, Sultan L, Green E, Constant M, Spira AE, Campbell JD, Reid ME, Varelas X, Burks EJ, Lenburg ME, Mazzilli SA, Beane JE. Epithelial miR-149-5p up-regulation is associated with immune evasion in progressive bronchial premalignant lesions. bioRxiv. 2025 Feb 05. PMID: 39975222.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 5/15/2024

    Hu X, Zhu B, Vokes N, Fujimoto J, Rojas Alvarez FR, Heeke S, Moreira AL, Solis LM, Haymaker C, Velcheti V, Sterman DH, Pass HI, Cheng C, Lee JJ, Zhang J, Wei Z, Wu J, Le X, Ostrin E, Toumazis I, Gibbons D, Su D, Fukuoka J, Antonoff MB, Gerber DE, Li C, Kadara H, Wang L, Davis M, Heymach JV, Hannash S, Wistuba I, Dubinett S, Alexandrov L, Lippman S, Spira A, Futreal AP, Reuben A, Zhang J. The evolution of lung adenocarcinoma precursors is associated with chromosomal instability and transition from innate to adaptive immune response/evasion. Res Sq. 2024 May 15. PMID: 38798564.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 4/1/2024

    Han G, Sinjab A, Rahal Z, Lynch AM, Treekitkarnmongkol W, Liu Y, Serrano AG, Feng J, Liang K, Khan K, Lu W, Hernandez SD, Liu Y, Cao X, Dai E, Pei G, Hu J, Abaya C, Gomez-Bolanos LI, Peng F, Chen M, Parra ER, Cascone T, Sepesi B, Moghaddam SJ, Scheet P, Negrao MV, Heymach JV, Li M, Dubinett SM, Stevenson CS, Spira AE, Fujimoto J, Solis LM, Wistuba II, Chen J, Wang L, Kadara H. Author Correction: An atlas of epithelial cell states and plasticity in lung adenocarcinoma. Nature. 2024 Apr; 628(8006):E1. PMID: 38499683.

    Read at: PubMed

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Other Positions

  • Professor, Medicine
    Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
  • Professor, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
    Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
  • Section Chief of Medicine in Computational Biomedicine, Medicine
    Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
  • Member, BU-BMC Cancer Center
    Boston University
  • Member, Pulmonary Center
    Boston University
  • Member, Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research
    Boston University
  • Member, Bioinformatics Graduate Program
    Boston University
  • Member, Genome Science Institute
    Boston University
  • Graduate Faculty (Primary Mentor of Grad Students)
    Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Graduate Medical Sciences

Websites

Education

  • McGill University, MD
  • Boston University, MSc
  • Vanier College, DEC

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