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Professor Minesh P Mehta, MD, FASTRO, is a prominent radiation oncologist and eminent clinician-scientist, who has continuously contributed to the field of oncology for more than two decades.

Minesh Prafulchandra Mehta
Minesh
Born	(1957-12-14)December 14, 1957 Mbarara, Uganda
Nationality	USA
Other names	Minesh, Dr Mehta.
Scientific career
Fields	Radiation Oncology Neuro Oncology Thoracic Oncology
Institutions	Northwestern University University of Wisconsin-Madison RTOG

Brief History

Minesh Mehta is currently a faculty member in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, with expertise in Thoracic Radiation Oncology, Neuro-Oncology, and Pediatric Radiation Oncology, working to build patient-focused, multi-disciplinary teams that provide world-class care, with an emphasis on personalizing every aspect of the patient care process.

In 1988, after completing his residency training at the University of Wisconsin, he joined the Department of Human Oncology, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison as an Assistant Professor, eventually becoming Department Chair and tenured Professor by 1997. Under his 10-year Chairmanship, the Department excelled in clinical and translational research, becoming one of the premier academic radiation oncology centers. It also became one of the most sought after centers for residency training in Radiation Oncology, and Medical Physics, a parallel program, housed both in the Departments of Human Oncology and Medical Physics.

Among his many accomplishments were the scientific and clinical implementation of image-guided intensity modulated radiotherapy through an NIH-funded Program Project Grant, overseeing the development of robust translational programs combining radiotherapy with targeted agents, specifically integrating advanced imaging (he was the Principal Investigator for the Imaging and Radiation Sciences Program of the University of Wisconsin Cancer Center for 15 years), and providing national and international leadership in Brain Tumor Clinical Trials through his leadership of the Brain Tumor Committee of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group ( RTOG) for over 10 years. Under his guidance and leadership, the RTOG Brain Tumor Committee arguably became the most comprehensive clinical trial co-operative group committee for this disease category, completing the largest ever randomized trial in Glioblastoma, incorporating patient-specific, advanced-imaging, molecular, and cognitive/quality-of-life endpoints.

Additionally, through his work in the RTOG and other clinical trial mechanisms he was instrumental in setting new standards in clinical research on Brain Metastases through a series of well-conducted multicenter, international, randomized trials, incorporating both traditional and novel endpoints, resulting in the most robust neurologic and neurocognitive dataset collection and evaluation for this condition.

Almost visionary for the time, he developed an extensive statewide network of radiotherapy centers allied to the University, in order to robustly extend the reach of clinical research through the entire state. He also mentored the development and successful completion and re-funding of a major NIH award focusing on Cancer Disparities in Underserved Populations, and this became the benchmark for successful survey, epidemiologic, interventional, and translational research in this field. He groomed several residents and faculty who went on to major leadership and research positions, and after 10 years as Chairman, stepped down in 2007, to focus on his Brain and Thoracic Tumor Clinical Trials interests, as well as committing significant time to resident, national, and international education, which remain his passions.

Early Life and Education

Born in Uganda, in 1957, to two teachers from India, Minesh Mehta excelled early at school, with the most noteworthy achievement of topping over 70,000 students in the 1969 national examination for entry into Secondary School. After moving to Zambia, he completed high school with excellent grades, and enrolled in the pre-medical curriculum, graduating with his Bachelors in Human Biology, with the highest GPA score till then, from the University of Zambia.

Medical Education

He completed Medical School at the University of Zambia in 1981, receiving numerous honors, including “Best” in Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and “Best Overall Graduate”. After completing his internship and a year of residency training, he enrolled in the Radiation Oncology Residency Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which he completed in 1988.

Scientific Career

His scientific journey in Neuro- and Thoracic Oncology started in 1988 and was marked by a zealous focus on clinical and translational research, including a variety of areas such as endobronchial brachytherapy, radioimmunotherapy, stereotactic radiosurgery, fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy, image-guided and intensity-modulated radiotherapy, radioprotectors, radiosensitizers, altered fractionation, combination chemoradiotherapy as well as combining targeted agents with radiotherapy.

Publications

Minesh Mehta has provided leadership for over 100 clinical protocols, authored almost 100 book chapters and published more than 700 scientific papers and abstracts. He has been a sought after national and international speaker, having delivered over 600 presentations.

The list can be obtained from:

http://fsmweb.northwestern.edu/faculty/viewpub2.cfm?xid=20412

http://www.biomedexperts.com/Profile.bme/923978/Minesh_P_Mehta

Roles in Scientific Arena:

Administrative positions

He has held numerous administrative positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health, Human Oncology including Professor, Director of Residency Program, and Chairman for a decade. His rise was meteoric.

• 1988-1994, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Medicine, Department of Human Oncology

• 1994-1997, Director, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Radiation Oncology, Residency Program.

• 1994-2002, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Human Oncology.
• 1996-1997, Vice Chair, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Human Oncology.

• 1997-2007, Chair, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Human Oncology.

• 2007-2010, Eric Wolfe Professor in Human Oncology, University of Wisconsin.

• 2009 Awarded FASTRO by ASTRO

Academic positions

The word Mehta is derived from Sanskrit word “mahita” meaning “to praise or magnify. It is respectfully used synonymously for “teacher” in Gujarat, India.

The name clearly fits the person, as he is an exceptionally talented teacher, having received numerous awards for this. He’s revered by anyone who learns from him. He has groomed over 100 residents, fellows and faculty several of whom went on to major leadership and research positions.

Expertise and Research Interests

His focus is primarily in the areas of intensity modulated radiotherapy, incorporating advanced imaging in radiotherapy treatment planning, CNS malignancies, lung cancer, pediatric neoplasms, stereotactic radiosurgery, radiosensitization, combined modality therapies, altered fractionation, cost-effectiveness, and outcomes research.

His particular expertise is in setting up and running multi-disciplinary clinics, conducting national and international multimodality protocols, participating in national organizational strategies for managing these tumors and developing radiosurgery systems and protocols. In addition, he has developed 3-D/conformal techniques, IMRT-IGRT systems, as well as interstitial brachytherapy expertise.

He has run numerous multimodality clinical trials at the national level for both adult and pediatric CNS neoplasms. Current major thrust areas include developing molecularly-targeted agents as radiosensitizers for thoracic and CNS tumors.

Advisory Boards and Consulting Roles

Dr. Mehta has served on over two dozen national and corporate advisory boards, including associations with several innovative start-ups, both in the biotech and medical physics arenas, allowing rapid clinical testing of life-changing oncology devices and drugs,.

Emergence of Tomotherapy:

In 1988 two Wisconsin scientists spent night after night performing stereotactic radiosurgery for cancer patients, using technology which although state-of-the-art and cutting-edge then, would be regarded as crude by today’s standards. One was a young physicist from Canada, T Rockwell Mackie, who grew up in the town where Cobalt therapy, a form of radiation treatment, was developed; Minesh Mehta was the other.

Eating pizza between seeing patients, the duo brainstormed about a new approach to radiation therapy, one that would target tumors more precisely and not damage so much healthy tissue at the same time. Initially, in collaboration with a small number of brilliant innovators, this led to the creation of software for 3D radiotherapy and stereotactic radiosurgery, resulting in the development of the early versions (initially referred to as “UW Stereo”) of what is possibly the most widely used software for 3-D radiotherapy, Pinnacle^TM, currently marketed by Philips. But on a grander scale, they dreamt of a CT scan-like device that would also let doctors pinpoint radiation precisely to the tumor.

Rock Mackie established a brilliant team that conceptualized what was then thought of as a “crazy idea”, now known as TomoTherapy -- the first-of-its-kind technology, a fully integrated and dedicated intensity-modulated image-guided radiotherapy device which has grandly contributed to a major transformation in radiation oncology.

Standard radiation therapy begins with a CT scan to delineate the tumor and normal tissues and to provide anatomic information for treatment planning and dose calculation. A small number of uniform beams of radiation (typically 2 to 6), target the tumor, often resulting in irradiation of large volumes of normal tissue to high doses. Further, the imprecision in daily reproducibility necessitates relatively large margins to avoid a “geographic miss” and these large margins further increase the risk of damage to normal tissues.

TomoTherapy, solves most of these limitations in an integrated and dedicated device, purpose-built to radically alter conventional radiotherapy. The ability to rotate the machine gantry completely around the patient while indexing the couch through the bore of the Computed Tomography (CT) allows the creation of a spiral pattern of dose-distribution from hundreds of beam directions, and the ability to modulate each of these tiny beamlets “on the fly” with a specially designed and fabricated device allows for the creation of dose-distributions that mimick the three-dimensional structure of the tumor, while elegantly sparing normal tissues.

The need for large margins is obviated because each treatment begins with a megavoltage CT scan, fused to the original treatment-planning CT scan, to verify accuracy on a daily basis. The ability to collect “exit dose” on CT detectors further permits daily verification of radiation dose-delivery, and the serial availability of both changes in tumor anatomy and variations in dose-deposition permits “adaption” of radiotherapy treatment plans. TomoTherapy therefore makes it possible to deposit a dose of radiation that reproduces the exact shape of the tumor, so the surrounding normal tissue gets far less high dose exposure to radiation.

Accurate targeting also means that doctors can safely deliver more radiation per dose and potentially shorten treatment duration. This has made it possible to reduce the standard eight- to nine-week treatment for prostate cancer to four to five weeks (and even as short as 2 weeks) for some patients and lung cancer from eight to 10 weeks to five weeks or even shorter; the biologic advantages of such schedule shortening have been prospectively tested in a series of clinical trials developed and led by Drs. Mehta, Mackie, and colleagues.

Over 125 radiation centers around the world already use TomoTherapy. In the words of Christopher J. Schultz, Radiation Oncology Professor at Medical College of Wisconsin, "It's the next generation of radiation therapy treatment machines".

Awards and Honors

Dr. Mehta’s career has been characterized by the award of several honors. His passion for scholarly excellence is evidenced by the highest score BSc. In Human Biology degree (till the award date) from the University of Zambia, which decorated him with the Kerry Gill Prize, Wildlife Conservation Prize for Best Freshman for Chemistry and Biology, the Raymond Radunski Prize for Best Overall Medical School Graduate (1981), the Merck, Sharpe and Dohme Prize for Best Graduate in Internal Medicine; the Upjohns Prize for the Best Graduate in Pediatrics; the Hassim Lucas Prize for Best Graduate in Obstetrics and Gynecology, etc ,.

He has been recognized as having the “Outstanding Article in the Field” in the Respiratory Diseases Digest (1989), named in the Year Book of Otolaryngology (1990), credited with the "Most important papers", by the International Monitor in Oncology (1992), and the Year Book of Oncology (1995).

He has received the Excellence in Quality of Life Research Award from the Society for Neuro-Oncology, and was named a Fellow of ASTRO in 2009. His teaching eminence has been recognized by several awards including Teacher of the Year Awards in 2008 & 2009 by the Association of Residents in Radiation Oncology, RSNA 2008, Radiotherapy teacher of the Year in 1994 & 1996 and Dean’s Teaching award 1990 by UW-Madison.

He has served in a mentoring role through the ASTRO/ARRO “Meet the Professors” annual event from 1998-2010, and has delivered the prestigious Pancer Lecture at the University of Toronto, and the Kramer Lecture at Thomas Jefferson University. For these accomplishments, he was awarded the Eric Wolfe Professorship (2007-2010).

His practice of the art and skill of medicine was recognized with the Lifetime Service Award by the American Board of Radiology in 2010; he has consistently been named in the listings of America’s Top Doctors for Cancer, Best Physicians by Madison Business Magazine, Top Docs by Madison Magazine, AMA Physicians’ Recognition Award and The Best Doctors in America. His contribution for invention of Tomotherapy, a modern radiation delivery machine was recognized by Ladies’ Home Journal Health Breakthrough Award (2007).

Areas of expertise

• Radiosensitizers: using classic, chemotherapy drugs and targeted agents to increase sensitivity for cancer treatment, with a focus on clinica trials.
• Radioprotectors: using classic and new drugs as well as molecularly targeted agents in radioprotection clinical trials for radiotherapy-induced toxicities.
• Innovations in radiation treatment: developing and incorporating technologies such as 3-D planning, IMRT (helical tomotherapy), radiosurgery, and incorporating novel imaging in treatment planning, monitoring, and delivery.
• Combined modality treatment of tumors of the CNS and thorax, as well as pediatric neoplasms: integrating systemic chemotherapy and novel agents, including personalized medicine approaches.
• Effects of therapies on cognition and developing methods to improve neurocognitive function.

Notable achievements

• Chair, Brain Tumor Committee, Radiation Therapy Oncology Group.
• Chair, Department of Human Oncology, 1997-2007.
• Program Leader, PO1 grant, 2002-07, National Cancer Institute.
• Program Leader, Imaging and Radiation Sciences Program, Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center, UW-Madison (1997-2010).
• Principal Investigator of numerous Phase I-III clinical trials, including federal, local and industry studies.

Memberships

He is a member of several renowned national and international oncological societies, including American Brachytherapy Society, American Medical Association, American Radium Society, American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, Children's Oncology Group, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, Indo-American Cancer Congress, International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, International Stereotactic Radiosurgery Society, North American Brain Tumor Consortium, Adult Brain Tumor Consortium, Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, Society for Neuro-Oncology, etc,.

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