Professor
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Kelly Hunt is Professor and Chair of the Department of Breast Surgical Oncology, and the Olla Stribling Distinguished Chair for Cancer Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She holds joint appointments as a Professor in the Department of Surgical Oncology and Professor in Experimental Radiation Oncology. She received her medical degree from The University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis and completed her surgical residency at the University of California-Los Angeles David Griffin School of Medicine. She joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as a surgical oncology fellow in 1994 and was appointed to the faculty two years later.
Dr. Hunt’s work focuses on finding less invasive yet more effective surgical procedures for patients with breast diseases and soft tissue sarcomas. As an international leader in clinical research, she has directed major clinical trials whose results have changed the standard of treatment for innumerable patients with cancer. She oversees a productive translational research program, where her investigations focus on developing novel treatment strategies involving agents that target cell cycle regulation in soft tissue sarcomas and breast cancers. For sarcoma, this has required developing functional imaging and biomarkers to determine the efficacy of suppression of cell cycle progression in mouse models and patients undergoing such treatment strategies. Dr. Hunt has to her credit more than 600 publications.
Dr. Hunt is the MD Anderson institutional PI for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, President of the American Radium Society, and President-Elect of the Society of Surgical Oncology. Her seminal contributions to the field of surgical oncology have been recognized through many awards and accolades, including: Faculty Achievement Award in Clinical Research from MD Anderson, induction into the Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce Hall of Fame, and the John Mendelsohn Faculty Leadership award.