Joshua D. Schiffman, M.D.

Bio

Dr. Schiffman received his medical degree from Brown University School of Medicine, completed his Pediatric Residency, Pediatric Chief Residency, and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at Stanford University. He has been an investigator at the Huntsman Cancer Institute since 2008, and a faculty member at the University of Utah since 2009. Dr. Schiffman is board-certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hematology-Oncology.

He is currently an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah, an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences, and is in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Primary Children´s Medical Center. He serves as the Medical Director of the High Risk Pediatric Cancer Clinic at Huntsman Cancer Institute where he cares for children and families with inherited risk for cancer. His specific clinical interests are cancer susceptibility in families, with a focus on the genomic changes necessary for cancer development.

Dr. Schiffman’s work in the High Risk Pediatric Cancer Clinic contributed to a landmark study in the field of clinical cancer genetics demonstrating that early cancer surveillance in families with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome significantly improves overall survival. He continues to work with children and families at high risk for cancer development to discover genes that may be targeted for both prevention and treatment of childhood cancer. Dr. Schiffman is also the Education Director for the Program in Personalized Health Care at the University of Utah, where he oversees the teaching of personalized medicine to physicians and their patients.

Board Certification and Academic Information

Research Interests

• Ewing's Sarcoma
• Li-Fraumeni Syndrome
• Paraganglioma
• Sarcoma
• TP53 Mutation
• Cancer Genetics
• Leukemia
• Familial Cancer Susceptibility

Lab Website

Board Certification and Academic Information

Academic Office Locations

Academic Bio

Joshua Schiffman, M.D., is an Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences in the School of Medicine at the University of Utah. He is an investigator in the Huntsman Cancer Institute and a member of the Nuclear Control of Cell Growth and Differentiation program. Since 2008, Dr. Schiffman has served as the Medical Director of the High Risk Pediatric Cancer Clinic, which is run through both Primary Children’s Medical Center and Huntsman Cancer Institute. He is the Education Director for the Program in Personalized Health Care at the University of Utah, and he oversaw the Translational Oncology Core (TOC) at HCI, which analyzes clinical samples from patients to identify targetable changes in tumors.

Dr. Schiffman is dedicated to translating biological and genomic discoveries into clinical advances for patients. His research emphasis is cancer susceptibility in families, with a focus on the genomic changes underlying pediatric cancer development. He is pursuing copy number changes related to leukemia and sarcoma development, and functional assays related to risk of hereditary cancers. He is involved with the Utah Population Database (UPDB) to understand the risk factors associated with cancer development in children and their families. Dr. Schiffman runs a translational genomics research laboratory, where he combines both epidemiological and comparative oncology perspectives to advance the understanding of why children develop cancer. Dr. Schiffman is a member of several national and international research cooperative groups related to cancer risk and genetic epidemiology. He is also the Principal Investigator of the Cancer Genetics Study (CGS) which enrolls high risk families for genomic analysis.

Schiffman earned his MD from Brown University, and completed his Pediatric Residency, Pediatric Chief Residency, and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at Stanford University, where he then served as an Instructor and directed the Pediatric Cancer Genetics Clinic (PCGC). In 2008, he joined the University of Utah as an Instructor, as well as an Investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute. Within one year, he had risen to Assistant Professor in Pediatrics, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012. Dr. Schiffman has written more than 150 publications, scientific papers, chapters, and abstracts.

Education History

Selected Provider Publications

Journal Article

1. Mangum DS, Downie J, Mason CC, Jahromi MS, Joshi D, Rodic V, Muschen M, Meeker N, Trede N, Frazer JK, Zhou Y, Cheng C, Jeha S, Pui CH, Willman CL, Harvey RC, Hunger SP, Yang JJ, Barnette P, Mullighan CG, Miles RR, Schiffman JD (2014). VPREB1 deletions occur independent of lambda light chain rearrangement in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Leukemia, 28(1), 216-20.
2. Jasperson KW, Kohlmann W, Gammon A, Slack H, Buchmann L, Hunt J, Kirchhoff AC, Baskin H, Shaaban A, Schiffman JD (2014). Role of rapid sequence whole-body MRI screening in SDH-associated hereditary paraganglioma families. Fam Cancer, 13(2), 257-65.
3. Schiffman JD, Geller JI, Mundt E, Means A, Means L, Means V (2013). Update on pediatric cancer predisposition syndromes. Pediatr Blood Cancer, 60(8), 1247-52.
4. Curtin K, Smith KR, Fraser A, Pimentel R, Kohlmann W, Schiffman JD (2013). Familial risk of childhood cancer and tumors in the Li-Fraumeni spectrum in the Utah Population Database: implications for genetic evaluation in pediatric practice. Int J Cancer, 133(10), 2444-53.
5. Jahromi MS, Putnam AR, Druzgal C, Wright J, Spraker-Perlman H, Kinsey M, Zhou H, Boucher KM, Randall RL, Jones KB, Lucas D, Rosenberg A, Thomas D, Lessnick SL, Schiffman JD (2012). Molecular inversion probe analysis detects novel copy number alterations in Ewing sarcoma. Cancer Genet, 205(7-8), 391-404.
6. Villani A, Tabori U, Schiffman J, Shlien A, Beyene J, Druker H, Novokmet A, Finlay J, Malkin D (2011). Biochemical and imaging surveillance in germline TP53 mutation carriers with Li-Fraumeni syndrome: a prospective observational study. Lancet Oncol, 12(6), 559-67.
7. Rudner LA, Brown KH, Dobrinski KP, Bradley DF, Garcia MI, Smith AC, Downie JM, Meeker ND, Look AT, Downing JR, Gutierrez A, Mullighan CG, Schiffman JD, Lee C, Trede NS, Frazer JK (2011). Shared acquired genomic changes in zebrafish and human T-ALL. Oncogene, 30(41), 4289-96.
8. Jahromi MS, Jones KB, Schiffman JD (2011). Copy Number Alterations and Methylation in Ewing's Sarcoma. Sarcoma, 2011, 362173.
9. Schiffman JD, Wright J (2011). Ewing's Sarcoma and Second Malignancies. Sarcoma, 2011, 736841.
10. Hao HX, Khalimonchuk O, Schraders M, Dephoure N, Bayley JP, Kunst H, Devilee P, Cremers CW, Schiffman JD, Bentz BG, Gygi SP, Winge DR, Kremer H, Rutter J (2009). SDH5, a gene required for flavination of succinate dehydrogenase, is mutated in paraganglioma. Science, 325(5944), 1139-42.
11. Schiffman JD, Chun N, Fisher PG, Dahl GV, Ford JM, Eggerding FA (2008). Identification of a novel p53 in-frame deletion in a Li-Fraumeni-like family. Pediatr Blood Cancer, 50(4), 914-6.

Book Chapter

1. Testa JR, Malkin D, Schiffman JD (2013). Connecting molecular pathways to hereditary cancer risk syndromes. In Am Soc Clin Oncol Educ Book (2013, pp. 81-90). United States.

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