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Dr. Matthew Rettig
Dr. Matthew Rettig, chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology in VA Greater Los Angeles, received the 2024 John Blair Barnwell Award for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Science Research and Development.
Dr. Rettig’s work in cancer research is a true demonstration of the community effort from our governmental and nongovernmental partners that goes into VA research, having received funding from the National Institute of Health, Department of Defense, Prostate Cancer Foundation and more. Dr. Rettig even hammered out a Memorandum of Understanding between the VA and the Prostate Cancer Foundation in 2016 that guaranteed an initial investment of $50 million from the Prostate Cancer Foundation into VA’s precision oncology program. This program has proven so successful it has grown into 20 centers of excellence and expanded into innovative lung cancer screening efforts as well.
His work on prostate cancer – the second-most lethal form of cancer among Veterans – has discovered multiple biomarkers, including toxic exposures. These early indicators of cancer help doctors across the nation to discover the disease in its early stages, and thus dramatically increase the odds of survival. He also developed a database of every Veteran with prostate cancer treated by the VA, going back to the dawn of the electronic health record. This database of nearly 300 searchable fields and over 1.2 million entries has proven to be an invaluable resource for the research community at large.
Most recently, Dr. Rettig has assembled a team of researchers that will develop artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to predict the possible recurrence of high-risk prostate cancer, a condition that represents a fifth to a quarter of all new cases. Once complete, this AI will greatly improve patient outcomes for Veterans, and help make the President’s Cancer Moonshot of preventing more than 4 million cancer deaths by 2047 into a reality.