Mark Watson, MD, PhD

Mark Watson, MD, PhD

Margaret Gladys Smith Professor in Pathology and Immunology
Vice Chair, Office of Faculty Development

Division

  • Laboratory & Genomic Medicine

Additional Titles

  • Vice Chair, Office of Faculty Development
  • Director, Siteman Cancer Center Tissue Procurement Core
  • Director, Alliance Biorepository and Biospecimen Resource
  • Director, Alliance Foundation Trials Biorepository

Related Links

Education

  • BA, Biochemistry: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (1985)
  • PhD, Neurosciences: Washington University, St. Louis, MO (1992)
  • MD: Washington University, St. Louis, MO (1992)

Board Certifications

  • American Board of Pathology, Clinical Pathology

Recognition

  • Graduate cum laude with honors in Biochemistry, Univ. Pennsylvania, 1985
  • Spencer T. Olin Fellowship, Washington University. 1991
  • Young Investigator Award, Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists. 1995, 1996
  • NCI Director’s Award for Clinical Science, 2018

Clinical Interests

  • Molecular Diagnostics
  • Cancer Genomics
  • Personalized Medicine

Research Interests

I direct several institutional and national biospecimen banking efforts, primarily in the context of NCI-sponsored cancer therapeutic trials. Using the resources available through our CAP-accredited, Siteman Cancer Center Tissue Procurement Facility, biospecimens are collected from clinical sites throughout the world, received, processed, and distributed for integral and correlative science biomarker studies. As part of this effort, I also supervise the development and deployment of software applications for biospecimen banking and biorepository operations.

My research laboratory is interested in identifying the genomic alterations that contribute to tumor cell metastasis in breast and lung cancer, with the goal of developing advanced genome-based diagnostics to detect, classify, and eradicate metastatic tumor cells to improve long-term patient outcome. By performing AI-based imaging, spatial profiling, and multiplexed genomic analyses of primary tumors, metastatic lesions, circulating tumor cells (CTCs), and disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) from cancer patients, we are identifying biomarkers that are both prognostic for outcome and predictive of therapeutic response. Our goal is to better understand the process of genomic evolution of tumor cells and to leverage this information to develop therapeutic targeting strategies, in collaboration with clinical and surgical oncologists, to mitigate metastatic disease.

Selected Publications

PubMed Search
Zhou H, Watson M, Bernadt CT, Lin SS, Lin CY, Ritter JH, Wein A, Mahler S, Rawal S, Govindan R, Yang C, Cote RJ. AI-guided histopathology predicts brain metastasis in lung cancer patients. J Pathol. 2024 May;263(1):89-98. PMID: 38433721; PMCID: PMC11210939.
Hwang ES, Hyslop T, Lynch T, Ryser MD, Weiss A, Wolf A, Norris K, Witten M, Grimm L, Schnitt S, Badve S, Factor R, Frank E, Collyar D, Basila D, Pinto D, Watson MA, West R, Davies L, Donovan JL, Shimada A, Li Y, Li Y, Bennett AV, Rosenberg S, Marks J, Winer E, Boisvert M, Giuliano A, Larson KE, Yost K, McAuliffe PF, Krie A, Tamirisa N, Carey LA, Thompson AM, Partridge AH; COMET Study Investigators. Active Monitoring With or Without Endocrine Therapy for Low-Risk Ductal Carcinoma In Situ: The COMET Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2024 Dec 12. PMID: 39665585.
Karlow JA, Devarakonda S, Xing X, Jang HS, Govindan R, Watson M, Wang T. Developmental Pathways Are Epigenetically Reprogrammed during Lung Cancer Brain Metastasis. Cancer Res. 2022 Aug;82(15):2692-2703. PMID: 35706127; PMCID: PMC9357144.
Pillai SG, Siddappa CM, Ma C, Snider J, Kaushal M, Watson MA, Aft R. A microfluidic-based filtration system to enrich for bone marrow disseminated tumor cells from breast cancer patients. PLoS One. 2021 May 14;16(5):e0246139. PMID: 33989287; PMCID: PMC8121342.
Filho OM, Stover DG, Asad S, Ansell PJ, Watson M, Loibl S, Geyer CE Jr, Bae J, Collier K, Cherian M, O’Shaughnessy J, Untch M, Rugo HS, Huober JB, Golshan M, Sikov WM, von Minckwitz G, Rastogi P, Maag D, Wolmark N, Denkert C, Symmans WF. Association of Immunophenotype With Pathologic Complete Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: A Secondary Analysis of the BrighTNess Phase 3 Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Oncol. 2021 Apr 1;7(4):603-608. PMID: 33599688; PMCID: PMC7893540.
Siddappa CM, Pillai SG, Snider J, Alldredge P, Trinkaus K, Watson MA, Aft R. Gene expression analysis to detect disseminated tumor cells in the bone marrow of triple-negative breast cancer patients predicts metastatic relapse. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2019 Nov;178(2):317-325. PMID: 31432366; PMCID: PMC3797655

Assistant
Lori Scantlan
314-747-8071
lscantlan@wustl.edu