Joaquina Baranda MD

Dr. Joaquina Baranda received her medical degree from the University of Santo Thomas in the Philippines in 1985 and completed her residency in internal medicine at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. Prior to joining KU Cancer Center, she was an assistant professor at the University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center as a GI oncologist, specialty care physician at Kansas City Veterans Administration Medical Center and medical director of clinical development and medical affairs at a biotech company as the medical lead for multi-center phase I trials. She is an active member of the Society for Immunotherapy in Cancer, the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Joaquina Baranda, MD, focuses her research on drug development and early therapeutics through investigator-initiated trials, and national and industry-sponsored trials. She has served as the principal investigator in phase I, II and III clinical trials in gastrointestinal cancers and later as an early phase investigator in different malignancies. Dr. Baranda is one of the leaders in translational clinical trial development at KU Cancer Center and nationally through the Southwest Oncology Group (now known as SWOG) with active roles in the GI working group.

Dr. Baranda leads the Early Phase research unit at KU Cancer Center to increase patient access to novel agents and develop translational investigations with biomarker development leading to precision medicine. She is the co-chair of the KU Cancer Center Investigator Initiated Trial Executive Committee. For many years she served as Chair of KU Cancer Center’s Cancer Program Education Committee, the Multidisciplinary Tumor Conference and was leader of GI oncology.