Tom Hei PhD

Dr. Tom Hei has been a faculty of the Department of Radiation Oncology / Center for Radiological Research for the past 38 years as Vice-Chair for Research in the Department and the Associate Director of the Center for Radiological Research for the past 12 years. His laboratory focuses on elucidating the basic mechanisms of radiation and environmental cancer using both human epithelial cell models as well as genetic-engineered animal models. His lung cancer program has studies related to asbestos fibers, arsenic, and radon, seemingly diverse physical and chemical carcinogens that all involve a free radical component. Using a charged particle microbeam, his laboratory has demonstrated unequivocally that radiation induces both extranuclear as well as extracellular effects that set off a paradigm shift in our understanding of the new radiobiology. His laboratory further demonstrated the role of cyclooxygenase-2 as a mediator in the induction of in vivo non-targeted response using a COX2 knockout mouse model. Furthermore, his laboratory has made seminal contributions to understanding the mechanism of radiation carcinogenesis with the identification that the TGFβ1 gene has tumor suppressor function in both lung and breast cancers.

In the environmental field, his laboratory was the first to demonstrate that inorganic arsenic and asbestos fibers, previously classified as non-genotoxic carcinogens, are mutagenic and induce mainly multi-locus deletions and that mitochondrial damages are essential in mediating the genotoxic response. Dr. Hei was a panel member of the National Academy of Sciences in reviewing the NIOSH Roadmap for Research on Mineral Fibers as well as being a team leader in writing the report on the genotoxic mechanism of asbestos fibers commissioned by the NIEHS / EPA. He was a team leader of the National Academy of Sciences task force in evaluating the NASA evidence report on space radiation carcinogenesis in 2016. Dr. Hei was elected Educator of the Year by the Association of Residents in Radiation Oncology in 2012 and was the past president of the Radiation Research Society. He has mentored numerous doctoral, medical, residents, and postdoctoral fellows over the years, many of whom are now leaders in their fields around the world.