Professor, Department of Surgery
Endowed Chair
Oregon Health & Science University

Research focus: Dr. Brody has dedicated his career to the understanding of the molecular underpinnings of pancreatic  tumorigenesis. He  has published >170peer  reviewed  publications, over 100  related specifically  to pancreatic cancer. Indeed, these articles cover a diverse range of cancer related topics from patient outcomes to the development of assays to improving therapeutics to reviews on personalized medicine and perspectives on training. Included in this list of publications are key papers listing the bench-bedside work related to personalized therapy (primarily focused on PDAC tumors with DNA repair defects) and work on an RNA binding protein (HuR) that is relevant to acute therapeutic resistance mechanisms. Of note, recently the pre-clinical work from his laboratory on pyrvinuim pomoate was published and set the framework for an initiated clinical trial (NCT05055323). In fact, Dr. Brody’s laboratory has also provided part of the pre-clinical work that supported a recently completed clinical trial involving PARP inhibitors (PMID: 32669374), a focus of his current work.  Key studies in  the  Brody  lab  discovered  that  HuR  regulated  WEE1, IDH1,  and  PARG. Additionally, his  lab  has published  on  drug-target  relationships  in  PDAC  cells  including  many druggable targets directly or indirectly evaluated now for cancer: IDH1, WEE1, PARG, TOP1, thymidylate synthase, CD4/6, HuR, and DNA repair genes (e.g., Fanconi Anemia genes and BRCA2). Early in his career he received a Pancreatic Career Development Award (PanCAN) which initiated his line of investigation into the RNA binding protein HuR which helped to identify and validate PDAC targets, PARG, IDH1 and WEE1, both explored in his lab now.  He has now recently been named to the prestigious Scientific Medical Advisory Board for the internationally recognized PanCAN and the council for the PCARP Programmatic Panel for the Department of Defense. To date, the Brody lab is the primary lab working on identifying new targets and understanding therapeutic resistance in PDAC.  In relation to mentoring, his recently graduated post-doc (Aditi Jain) and his  surgeon-scientist  mentee  at  OHSU  (Robert  Eil) received  PanCAN  Career  Development  Awards and the OHSU Faculty Excellence and Innovation Awards 2025, underscoring Dr. Brody’s commitment to mentorship.  Of note, he mentoring and leading the charge with Dr. Clay Kills First to addressing the disparities in Oregon in relation to PDAC care (recently funded by the Kuni Foundation and the DoD).Dr. Brody currently holds NIH and DoD funding to study: 1) metabolic vulnerabilities in PDAC (setting the stage for an initiated clinical trial targeting IDH1 with a surgeon-scientist); 2) a 3D/4D progression model of pancreatic tumorigenesis related to BRCA1/2 germline mutations; 3) disparities in Oregon in the Native American communities as it relates to pancreatic cancer.

Internal leadership at OHSU: Dr. Brody is the Deputy Director for the BCCPC and Vice Chair of Research for the Dept. of Surgery. He also brought to OHSU and co-directs the OHSU-STEMM-Prep, Distance Learning program and serves on many leadership and mentoring committees.

External leadership: Dr. Brody served on the DOD Council for the Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program for many years and was elected as previous Chair. He has now recently been named to the SMAB for PanCAN and the council for the PCARP Programmatic Panel. Additionally, Dr. Brody was a permanent member and Chair of the CPSS NIH study section and was a recent Chair of the Tumor Biology and Genomics and Professor Study Sections (American Cancer Society); and now a program (P)- grant NIH study section. He served as the chair of the PanCAN career development award study section. He has served on numerous panels (NIH, DOD, American Cancer Society related)and is also the acting co-Editor-in-Chief of Cancer, Biology and Therapy (Taylor, Francis) and Molecular Biology Reports (Springer). He was asked to be a panelist on the education session at the Annual AACR meeting (2022): “The Importance of Surgeon Engagement for Translational Cancer Research.”

Jonathan Brody, Ph.D. Current highlights, and leadership roles:

• Professor in the Department of Surgery and Endowed Chair at OHSU, focusing on pancreatic cancer.
• Vice chair of research, Dept. of Surgery, OHSU
• Deputy Director of the Brenden-Colson Center for Pancreatic Care.
• Co-leader of the Healthy Oregon Project and a member of various research groups, including the Knight Cancer Institute.
• Completed chair of a NIH study section, ad hoc reviewer; Previous chair and council member of a Dept. of Defense Cancer Program, current member of the pancreatic cancer DoD program
• Endowed Gerlinger Surgical Chair