William Martson Linehan MD

William Marston Linehan, M.D., is Chief of Urologic Surgery and the Urologic Oncology Branch as well as Acting Chief of the Surgical Oncology Program, Center for Cancer Research, at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. He has had a long-standing interest in the identification of the genetic basis of cancer of the kidney.

By studying patients and families with kidney cancer, he and his colleagues identified the VHL gene (von Hippel-Lindau and clear cell renal carcinoma), the gene for Hereditary Papillary Renal Carcinoma (MET oncogene, type I papillary renal carcinoma) the FLCN gene (Birt Hogg Dubé syndrome, chromophobe renal carcinoma), the gene for TFE3 kidney cancer and described the germline fumarate hydratase and succinate dehydrogenase B/C/D mutations in the North American families with hereditary leiomyomatosis renal cell carcinoma (HLRCC) and SDH-RCC and described five new diseases. This work has provided the basis for the development of new therapeutic strategies for the different types of kidney cancer based on understanding the molecular pathway of the specific cancer genes associated with the different types of kidney cancer.

Linehan and his colleagues have defined the methods for clinical management of kidney cancer associated with the hereditary forms of kidney cancer, von Hippel-Lindau, Hereditary Papillary Renal Carcinoma and Birt Hogg Dubé syndrome and Hereditary Leiomyomatosis Renal Cell Carcinoma, and Succinate Dehydrogenase Renal Cell Carcinoma.