Roles
W. Jarrard Goodwin Professor – Head and Neck Surgical Oncology
Vice-Chairman for Academic Affairs, Department of Otolaryngology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Co-Leader, Head and Neck site disease group, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Co-Director, Division of Head and Neck Surgery, Department of Otolaryngology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
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Biography
Donald T. Weed, MD, FACS, is the W. Jarrard Goodwin Professor of Head and Neck Surgical Oncology and Executive Vice Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Weed attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, majoring in English Literature, graduating with Honors, and was the recipient of the Gaius C. Bolin essay prize in Afro-American literature his senior year. He spent a year working in a research laboratory at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia after graduating from Williams, and before completing his medical degree at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine as a Justin Potter Medical Scholar. He remained at Vanderbilt for his Otolaryngology residency and completed his fellowship in head and neck surgery at Vanderbilt with Jim Netterville and Brian Burkey. Dr. Weed took a position in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine after completing his fellowship training, joining then chair Jerry Goodwin and Frank Civantos in the head and neck division in 1996. Dr. Weed has remained at UM ever since, and is now co-leader with Dr. Civantos of a head and neck division of 9 head and neck surgeons, and is co-leader of the head and neck site disease group of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, in addition to serving as Executive Vice Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology. A tenured professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Dr. Weed was awarded the W. Jarrard Goodwin Chair in Head and Neck Surgical Oncology in 2016, an endowed chair named in honor of his long time mentor Jerry Goodwin. Dr. Weed has been a passionate educator of residents and fellows throughout his career, having served as residency program co-director and subsequently program director at the University of Miami over a span of 16 years. An active contributor to the American Head and Neck Society, he has served on the Advanced Training Council of the AHNS for 11 years. The Advanced Training Council is responsible for accrediting and overseeing all AHNS approved head and neck fellowship programs in the United States and Canada. Dr. Weed has served as chairman of the Advanced Training Council for past three years. Dr. Weed is equally passionate about contributing to the training of head and neck surgeons internationally, working directly with head and neck surgeons and their trainees in Haiti, Uganda and Kenya. Dr. Weed has served the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery in a number of capacities as well, including as past chairman of the microvascular committee. Finally he has enjoyed a long-standing research collaboration with Paolo Serafini, PhD, in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. An NIH funded investigator, Dr. Weed holds two INDs and has led investigator initiated clinical trials studying immunomodulators in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Together, Dr. Weed and Dr. Serafini have established a program of study of the immunologic infiltrate and methods of modulating the host tumor immune response in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. -
Education & Training
Education
Post Graduate Training
Licensures and Certifications
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Honors & Awards
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Research Interests
Dr. Weed’s primary clinical and translational research focus is in the area of novel immunotherapy strategies for patients with recurrent HNSCC. Inhibition of phosphodiesterase Type 5 and its down-stream pathways has been shown to disrupt the tumor’s ability to evade the host immune response in laboratory animals with effects on both T regulatory cells and Myeloid Derived Suppressor Cells (MDSC). Dr. Weed has been the principle investigator for a clinical trial completed at the University of Miami (NCT00843635) in which patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) were given the Phosphodiesterase Type 5 (PDE5) inhibitor Tadalafil prior to surgical resection of their tumor and subsequent administration of standard adjuvant therapy to assess the effect of tadalafil as an immune system modulator in these patients. Paolo Serafini, PhD, the Basic Science PI on the clinical trial, has been Dr. Weed’s close collaborator on this and related projects. This trial, and a related trial at Johns Hopkins University on which Dr. Serafini and Dr. Weed were collaborators and co-authors (NCT00894413), demonstrated that PDE5 inhibitors can lower Myeloid Derived Suppressor Cells (MDSCs) and regulatory T cells (Treg) and increase tumor immunity in patients with HNSCC. Results of these two trials have been published in Clinical Cancer Research. Building on these data Drs. Weed and Serafini completed accrual on the Phase I component of a randomized Phase I/II clinical trial (NCT20140960) involving a similar group of head and neck cancer patients who underwent surgery, this time for recurrence of their cancer after prior radiation. Patients received several courses of Tadalafil and the poly ICLC/MUC1 tumor vaccine both before and after surgery, and immunologic parameters are monitored along with clinical endpoints of recurrence and survival. This trial was conducted at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and affiliated hospitals of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Analysis of data from the phase I component of NCT20140960 demonstrated that patients with recurrent HNSCC treated with Tadalafil and the tumor specific polyICLC/MUC1 vaccine have fewer MDSCs and Treg in the blood and in the tumor, an increased tumor immunity, and a higher infiltration of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes with an activated phenotype. However, this analysis also showed that treatment with Tadalafil and the poly ICLC/MUC1 vaccine also resulted in the upregulation of the immunological checkpoint PDL1 in the neoplastic cells, likely restraining the immune response to treatment. Results of the interim analysis of the Phase I of NCT20140960 have been published in Frontiers in Immunology. More recently Dr. Serafini and Dr. Weed, together with Silvio Bicciato PhD, have collaborated on the characterization of the tumor immune microenvironment architecture in HNSCC using the CODEX platform and have correlated the spatial organization of tumor-infiltrating leukocytes with prognosis. Specifically a high frequency of tertiary lymphoid structures composed of CD31highCD38high plasma cells was associated with reduced recurrence after surgical resection of HNSCC. This work has been published in Cancer Research. -
Publications
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