Q&A: Diane Simeone, M.D.

Diane Simeone, M.D., is the new director of Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health and a pancreatic surgeon scientist in the Division of Surgical Oncology in the Department of Surgery. The Moores Cancer Center is the region’s only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, which brings together top physicians and scientists from across San Diego to provide science-driven cancer care and treatment.

August 21, 2024 | Interview by Brittany Fair, M.S. 

Q: Where are you originally from?

I grew up in a tightly knit family the seaside town of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, with four other siblings. It’s a town of around 30,000 people. My father was the chair of economics at Providence College and my mom was initially a homemaker, but later went back to get her degree as a nutritionist. Education was always a priority in our family.

Q: Did you always know you wanted to be a doctor or surgeon?

I’ve always been fascinated by the inner workings of human biology and knew I wanted to pursue a career in health or medicine, but I was also an athlete—my other passion was basketball. I helped lead my high school basketball team to win the state championships and was later inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame. Being an active participant in sports was important for learning how to work with a team through thick and thin and set high standards for what we wanted to accomplish.

I continued to play basketball while studying neuroscience at Brown University, but I ultimately knew I wanted to become a physician. Being a doctor is a wonderful marriage of understanding how things work, but also advancing new treatments and approaches to help people get better.

Q: Was it ever difficult to become a female surgeon; a field often dominated by men?

While on a rotation in medical school at Duke University, I was exposed to surgery, and it was the perfect fit for me. So, I decided to apply for residency in general surgery; however back then women were not strongly supported in that field. I had surgical residents tell me, “Although I was fully capable of doing it, it would be too hard of a life for me.” I decided to ignore them. I didn’t think someone else should set boundaries for what I could accomplish.

Q: Why are you passionate about studying pancreatic cancer?

It is a tough, unsolved problem that really hasn’t had the right attention or investment. When I was a surgical resident, it struck me as an area that was a significant unmet need. It was an almost uniformly lethal disease. Most patients had advanced disease at the time of diagnosis, and the number of patients we could help surgically was low. Even the minority of patients that we were able to resect, the recurrence rate was high. I was an energetic young physician at the time, and I thought I could make a difference here.

It was clear that an investment in bringing clinicians and scientists together to tackle the problem could be very beneficial. I worked to set up a multidisciplinary clinic for pancreatic cancer, and invite talented faculty to work together. It became very clear that this type of collaborative approach was the right one to move forward.

Q: Why is pancreatic cancer so deadly? Will researchers be able to change outcomes any time soon?

Pancreatic cancer tends to spread to other organs early—usually the cancer has metastasized before the patient even knows they have cancer. The unique environment of the pancreas likely also plays a role, as it is the only organ in the body that contains digestive enzymes, which if unleashed, can cause a profound inflammatory reaction. Pancreatic cancer has a pathognomonic desmoplastic reaction, which is immunosuppressive.  I suspect it is a partnership of mutated cell and a tumor-promoting microenvironment that creates this aggressive behavior.

Q: What is the best approach for improving outcomes of pancreatic cancer?

Early detection is critical. The current survival rate for pancreatic cancer is 13%, but if caught during stage 1a, the survival rate jumps to 83%. Thus, we need to develop better screening methods as soon as possible.

When I was at New York University, I founded the Pancreatic Cancer Early Detection (PRECEDE) Consortium, an international consortium established to drive the early detection of pancreatic cancer. The study plans to longitudinally follows 10,000 high-risk individuals from sites across the globe and collects standardized data on genetics, clinical information, imaging, and blood and tumor samples. The goal is to get to 50% survival rate in the next ten years through early detection. The effort is thriving, and we now have 55 actively enrolling sites worldwide, with close to 7000 patients enrolled, with an enrollment rate of about 160-170 patients per month.  I expect the learnings from this study to be transformational for the field. A key part of the Consortium’s effort is that all centers must agree to share data and samples to join—with this level of scale, we are much more likely to drive solutions to early detection.

Q: What are you working on as the new director of the Moores Cancer Center?

As the only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in the region, we are bringing together physicians and scientists from not only across UC San Diego, but also from across the Unites States to work collaboratively to reach better outcomes. 

Moores Cancer Center and UC San Diego is such a unique and rich scientific environment. And, of course, we have so many talented clinicians here that deliver state-of-the-art cancer care for our patients. We want to build upon these strengths to create and test the next generation of novel therapeutics to treat cancer in more effective ways. We are expanding our clinical trial operations to do this faster and better and offer clinical trials at multiple sites across our community. There’s been significant underinvestment in early detection and the prevention of cancer, and I’d like to create a model for how to effectively implement these strategies at the Moores Cancer Center to serve as a model for other cancer centers to emulate.

Q: What do you love most about living in San Diego?

San Diego is such a rich environment of innovative science and health research. It’s truly inspiring to be here. Outside of work, my husband and I enjoy the beautiful outdoors, running on the beach, and taking our golden retriever, Maizey, to the dog beach and watching her bounce in the waves.

Q: If you had the opportunity for a “life-redo,” would you still become a pancreatic surgeon and researcher?

One hundred percent. I’ve had a remarkable career so far.  Every day, someone interesting either walks through my door or I walk through their door. I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to do.