Craig Lee Slingluff, Jr, MD
Cutaneous (Skin) Surgical Oncology
Bio & Overview
Surgical oncologist Craig Slingluff, MD, is the Joseph Helms Farrow professor of surgery at UVA Health, where he serves as the vice-chair for research in the department of surgery, director of the UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center Human Immune Therapy Center, and director of the surgical oncology research training program. He has over 30 years of experience as a surgical oncologist and as an independent investigator in cancer immunology and immunotherapy, all at UVA.
His research work includes laboratory studies and clinical trials, focused primarily on developing melanoma vaccines and combination immunotherapy, with extensive correlative studies. Since 1996, he has run over 25 investigator-initiated clinical trials, most of which have been for melanoma vaccines, especially involving melanoma peptides. These studies have all included intensive immunologic correlates based on evaluating immunologic response in multiple tissue compartments. A major focus of his work now is on characterizing the metastatic melanoma microenvironment, especially including the molecular mediators of immune dysfunction versus tumor rejection.
As a surgical oncologist, he facilitates the collection of human tumor tissue for research and has collected a large human tissue resource for ongoing and future correlative studies. This includes tumor microarrays linked to clinical outcome data. He is dedicated to the development of new technologies and therapies for melanoma and other cancers. He has mentored over 20 research fellows, and he has been funded continuously by the National Cancer Institute for 30 years for his work in translational and clinical research and his mentorship of young surgeon-scientists.
Academic Information
- Department
- Surgery
- Academic Role
- Professor
- Division
- Breast & Melanoma Surgery
- Research Interests
- Tumor immunology|Melanoma
- Gender
- Male
- Languages
- French, English
- Age Groups Seen
- Adults (21-65)
Older Adults (65+)
- Primary Education
- University of Virginia School of Medicine
- Residency
- Duke University Medical Center
- Fellowships
- Duke University School of Medicine
- Certification
- American Board of Surgery (Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery)
- Appointment
- Vice Chair for Research - Department of Surgery
Highlights
Meet Craig Slingluff, MD
My name is Craig Slingluff. I'm a surgical oncologist at the University of Virginia. Most of the patients I see are those who come in with a new diagnosis of melanoma and need definitive surgical treatment to remove it, as well as checking the lymph nodes by taking them out to see if there's any evidence to spread there. I was interested in medicine really from an early age, some probably because family friends were physicians, and many of them were surgeons. Also, from a young age, I liked taking things apart and putting them back together again, which is consistent with my ultimate career in surgery. When a patient comes to see me, commonly the patient has just been diagnosed with a melanoma. A lot of melanomas get caught early enough that their risk of spread and the risk of death from melanoma is very low. So I always want to give people realistic comfort when that's the case. I'm passionate about creating new knowledge, and a lot of what I do is developing and running clinical trials, especially of vaccines for melanoma to boost immune responses against melanoma for our patients.
Awards
- America’s Top Doctors (2008 - 2023)– Castle-Connolly
- America’s Top Doctors for Cancer 2006 - 2021 – Castle-Connolly
- Excellence in Research, University of Virginia School of Medicine, 2012 (Team Award)