Yazan Numan, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor , Medicine
Research Program
- Associate Members
Cancer-Focused Research
Dr. Numan, functioning as the Medical Director of Clinical Research, Northwestern Medicine South Region, has extended the clinical trial platform of the Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center to the southern Chicago suburbs. New cancer therapies are tested using a wide range of trial designs, each targeting different diseases with different research goals. One trial that Dr Numan introduced to south of Chicagoland area, of particular interest, is a tissue banking study. This project endeavors to create a library of different cancer tissue from different tumor types. As we learn more about the genetic underpinnings of cancer, we can look back to see which genes were expressed in these tumors. This information is invaluable, since we will know how these patients did clinically, and we can match different genetic signatures to treatment response and outcome. Tissue banking trials like this help us understand how tumors escape our treatments. But of more importance to patients struggling with malignancy right now, are novel therapies, treatments that can impact patients with cancer in real time. With Dr. Numan's leadership, have opened 8 treatment trials in the South Region. And while that might sound like a small number. Dr. Numan has helped determine which trials would have the greatest impact on the local population and has prioritized common malignancies such as breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and lung cancer. Dr Numan's work also addresses a major initiative at Northwestern Medicine: the reduction of healthcare disparities across all our service areas and communities. Many of the populations in this part of Chicago are underserved and vulnerable. By bringing innovations to these areas, Dr. Numan is serving our organizational goal as well as promoting improved cancer care across the entire region (and the United States). As discussed above, Dr. Numan has been key in selecting clinical trials that will have the greatest impact in this geography. Many of the cancers we are targeting (breast, colon, lung) have been repeatedly identified as diseases that disproportionately impact at-risk communities.