Jack F. Shern, MD

Dr. Jack Shern is a pediatric oncologist with the primary interest of developing effective therapies for children and adults with genetic tumor predisposition syndromes, such as neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), and rare solid tumors. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Georgia and completed his pediatric residency at the University of Chicago. Dr. Shern then moved to the Johns Hopkins/NIH fellowship program for pediatric hematology and oncology in the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the NCI, where he is now a Lasker Clinical Research Scholar leading the Tumor Evolution and Genomics Section. Dr. Shern established a translational research program within NCI’s Pediatric Oncology Branch focused on the study of pediatric soft tissue sarcomas including Rhabdomyosarcoma and Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumors (MPNST). His research is focused on defining and developing precision therapies targeting the genetic mutations that drive tumorigenesis. His laboratory uses cutting edge genomic and molecular profiling techniques, such as whole genome and single cell sequencing, to discover and profile tumor cells that are responsible for relapse and refractory disease. Dr. Shern is actively engaged in the NCI-supported Children's Oncology Group, studying the use of mutational information to inform diagnosis and management of pediatric soft tissue sarcomas, and he also plays integral roles in the Cancer Moonshot funded Rare Tumor Initiative and the My Pediatric and Adult Rare Tumor Network (MyPART), as well as in NCI’s Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI)

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