Andrew K Godwin, Ph.D

Andrew K. Godwin is a leader in the field of translational research and precision cancer medicine. Andy is the Chancellor’s Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Sciences Endowed Professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania while carrying out his thesis research at Fox Chase Cancer Center. After 26 fruitful years at Fox Chase, Andy returned to Kansas where he serves as professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and director of Molecular Oncology. In the latter position, he directs the Clinical Molecular Oncology Laboratory, a CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited molecular diagnostics laboratory, and heads our institutional efforts in the area of personalized medicine. He was recently awarded a Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant from the NIH/NIGMS to develop the “Kansas Institute for Precision Medicine”. He was appointed the Deputy Director of KU’s NCI designation Cancer Center in 2013 and was named a Kansas Bioscience Authority Eminent Scholar in 2010. His contributions towards education and training was recognized when he was presented the KUMC School of Medicine Achievement Award for Mentoring Post-Docs in 2014, the KU Medical Center’s Faculty Investigator Research Award in 2015, the University of Kansas Cancer Center Director’s William Jewell Team Science Award in 2017, the KUCC Director’s Basic Science Award in 2018, the Chancellor’s Club Award in 2018, and most recently the Higuchi-KU Endowment Research Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences in 2019 – the state higher education system’s most prestigious recognition for scholarly excellence. He also leads KU’s ovarian cancer research working group, and directs the Biomarker Discovery Laboratory and the Center’s Biospecimen Repository Core Facility. He is a currently a member of the Early Therapeutics and Rare Cancer’s Committee and the Vice Chair of the Breast Translational Medicine subcommittee of the Southwest Oncology Group.

Andy’s laboratories at KUMC continue to focus on various aspects of both basic and translational research, with an emphasis on early detection of cancer, predictive and prognostic biomarkers, liquid biopsies based on extracellular vesicles, molecular therapeutics, companion diagnostics, clinical trials, and biosample ascertainment. He is an NIH-funded investigator since 1993 and a highly published (more than 450 manuscripts and scholarly review articles) and cited (more than 42,000) scientists. He is internationally recognized for his molecular biology/genetic studies of sarcoma (gastrointestinal stromal tumors and Ewing sarcoma), breast and ovarian cancer, and his efforts to help bridge the gap between basic and clinical science in order to improve patient care.