John Ruckdeschel was named director of the cancer institute of the University of Mississippi Medical Center as well as Ergon Chair in Cancer Research.
Ruckdeschel, who previously served as the director of the Moffitt Cancer Center, led that institution to NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center designation and to become the third largest clinical cancer program in the U.S.
He then moved to the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Center in Detroit where he re-acquired its NCI comprehensive status and completed the process of making Karmanos a freestanding cancer hospital.
His research was originally in basic immunology but gravitated to clinical and translational research in thoracic malignancies. Ruckdeschel’s career has focused on lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies. He is credited with more than 150 peer reviewed manuscripts and co-editorship of the Textbook of Thoracic Oncology. He is a North American Editor for the Cochrane Lung Cancer Review Group.
Ruckdeschel and Terrance Albrecht co-developed a means to effectively video record patient-physician interactions and applied this technology to understanding clinical trials accrual and end of life decision-making.
