David Kirsch, MD, PhD
Senior Scientist, Peter and Shelagh Godsoe Chair in Radiation Medicine Princess Margaret Cancer Center
David Kirsch, MD, PhD, is the Peter and Shelagh Godsoe Chair in Radiation Medicine, Head of the Radiation Medicine Program, and Head of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network. He is also a Professor in the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. Dr. Kirsch is an expert in the use of radiation therapy to care for patients with bone and soft tissue sarcomas. As a Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, he leads a research lab utilizing sophisticated genetically engineered mouse models and human cancer cell lines to study mechanisms of tumor development and the response of cancer and normal tissues to radiation. He serves as the overall PI for SU2C-SARC032, which demonstrated that the addition of anti-PD-1 pembrolizumab to pre-operative radiation therapy improved disease free survival in high-risk, extremity soft tissue sarcoma patients.
After graduating from Duke with a BS in Biology, he completed the MD/PhD program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he performed his thesis research with Dr. Michael Kastan. After an internship in Internal Medicine, Dr. Kirsch trained in radiation oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed a post-doc in the laboratory of Dr. Tyler Jacks at M.I.T. In 2007 Dr. Kirsch returned to Duke to care for patients with sarcomas and establish an independent laboratory. In 2023 he was recruited to Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.
He has mentored over 60 trainees including undergraduate students, graduate students, medical students, post-doctoral fellows, and residents. In 2014, Dr. Kirsch received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring from Duke University and in 2021 he received the Career Mentoring Award in Basic and Translational Science from the Duke School of Medicine. He has received a number of awards for his research including the 2010 Michael Fry Award and the 2017 J.W. Osborne Award from the Radiation Research Society. He is a recipient of an R35 Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Kirsch has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, a Fellow of the American Society for Radiation Oncology, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
