Eric J. Burks, MD

Associate Professor, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

Eric Burks, MD, studies screening-detected non-small cell lung cancer. Dr. Burks’ studies established the diagnostic criteria for an entity now known as pulmonary adenocarcinoma of low malignant potential (LMP) which has been internationally validated and shown to account for overdiagnosis in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST). His work has further established angioinvasive lung adenocarcinoma as the most aggressive form of early-stage NSCLC. Patients with small (<2 cm) angioinvasive tumors benefit from surgical resection of the entire involved lung lobe whereas the remaining patients are adequately treated with parenchymal sparing approaches such as wedge resection. Dr. Burks is a provisional patent holder (BU-2023-026) for biomarkers associated with angioinvasive lung adenocarcinoma, a co-investigator on a U01, The Lung Pre-Cancer Atlas project, a site PI on two R01s and a co-PI on an American Society of Hematology grant. In addition, he directs hematopathology, the hematology laboratory, the immunohistochemistry and special procedures laboratory, including amyloid pathology, and the hemoglobin diagnostic reference laboratory at Boston Medical Center.

Publications

  • Published 3/29/2025

    Prokaeva T, Jayaraman S, Klimtchuk E, Burke N, Spencer B, Nedelkov D, Chen H, Dasari S, McPhail ED, Pereira L, Payne MC, Wong S, Burks EJ, Sanchorawala V, Gursky O. An unusual phenotype of hereditary AApoAI amyloidosis caused by a novel Asp20Tyr substitution is linked to pH-dependent aggregation of apolipoprotein A-I. Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Basis Dis. 2025 Jun; 1871(5):167820. PMID: 40164396.

    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 1/30/2025

    Subramaniam S, Napoleon MA, Lotfollahzadeh S, Kamal MH, Kurniawan H, Elsadawi M, Kenney D, Douam F, Bosmann M, Whelan S, Cabral H, Burks EJ, Zhao G, Kolachalama V, Ravid K, Chitalia V. Tryptophan metabolism reprogramming contributes to the prothrombotic milieu in mice and humans infected with SARS-CoV-2. bioRxiv. 2025 Jan 30. PMID: 39896681.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 9/4/2024

    Zheng Y, Conrad RD, Green EJ, Burks EJ, Betke M, Beane JE, Kolachalama VB. Graph Attention-Based Fusion of Pathology Images and Gene Expression for Prediction of Cancer Survival. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2024 Sep; 43(9):3085-3097. PMID: 38587959.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 6/10/2024

    Steiner D, Sultan L, Sullivan T, Liu H, Zhang S, LeClerc A, Alekseyev YO, Liu G, Mazzilli SA, Zhang J, Rieger-Christ K, Burks EJ, Beane J, Lenburg ME. Identification of a gene expression signature of vascular invasion and recurrence in stage I lung adenocarcinoma via bulk and spatial transcriptomics. bioRxiv. 2024 Jun 10. PMID: 38915565.

    Read at: PubMed

Other Positions

  • Member, BU-BMC Cancer Center
    Boston University

Education

  • University of New Mexico School of Medicine, MD
  • New Mexico State University, BS