Dr. David Zhen is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where he joined as faculty in 2017. He obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Cellular, Molecular, and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan and his medical degree at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He subsequently completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota followed then by hematology/oncology fellowship at University of Michigan. He is a gastrointestinal medical oncologist and cares for patients with all gastrointestinal malignancies but has a specific clinical and research focus in neuroendocrine tumors and gastroesophageal cancers. During his tenure, he has led the development of a neuroendocrine tumor program at his institution, including creating a multidisciplinary neuroendocrine tumor board in conjunction with his colleague, Dr. Delphine Chen of Nuclear Medicine, to not only discuss challenging cases but also to provide education on findings of new research that inform clinical practice for patients with neuroendocrine tumors. He is a member of the neuroendocrine tumor panel for the NCCN guidelines consensus and serves as an early career member of the NCI Neuroendocrine Task Force of the NCI GI Steering Committee. His research is focused on identifying new therapies through clinical trials incorporating translational research with the goal of identifying biomarkers that better predictor response and resistance to therapy. He is the national PI for an actively enrolling clinical trial he developed through the SWOG cooperative group evaluating immunotherapy with standard chemotherapy for poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinomas, works on investigator initiated trials for both neuroendocrine tumors and gastric cancers, and serves as the local PI for multiple industry sponsored clinical trials in gastrointestinal cancers.
Dr. Zhen chairs the GI Oncology subcommittee of the Binaytara Foundation Education Academy.