Dr. James M. Ford, M.D., is a Professor of Medicine (Oncology) and of Genetics and, by courtesy, of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Stanford Cancer Genetics Clinic and the Stanford Clinical Cancer Genomics Program. Dr. Ford was a recipient of the V Foundation Translational Research Grant in 2002 and joined the Scientific Advisory Committee in 2003.
Dr. Ford’s research goals are to understand the role of genetic changes in cancer genes in the risk and development of common cancers. He studies the role of the p53 and BRCA1 tumor suppressor genes in DNA repair, and he uses techniques for high-throughput genomic analyses of cancer to identify molecular signatures for targeted therapies. Dr. Ford’s clinical interests include the diagnosis and treatment of patients with a hereditary pre-disposition to cancer. He runs the Stanford Cancer Genetics Clinic, which sees patients for genetic counseling and testing of hereditary cancer syndromes and which also enters patients on clinical research protocols for prevention and early diagnosis of cancer in high-risk individuals.
Dr. Ford graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. degree from Yale University in 1984 and earned his M.D. degree from Yale in 1989. He has been at Stanford ever since, serving as an intern, resident and fellow before earning his postdoc and becoming Assistant Professor in 1998.
