Donald L. Morton, M.D.

John Wayne Cancer Institute
Santa Monica, CA

Dr. Morton is an accomplished surgical oncologist and a renowned clinical scientist whose fundamental discoveries have profoundly changed the treatment of human cancer. His pioneering work with intratumoral bacille Calmette-Guerin for melanoma represented the first successful clinical application of immunotherapy against a metastatic human cancer. His innovative studies of sentinel node mapping changed the standard of care for patients with early-stage malignant melanoma and other solid cancers that drain via the lymphatic system.

Dr. Morton's scientific contributions toward the immunology of cancer and surgical oncology have yielded more than 600 publications in peer-reviewed journals and have garnered him a long series of prestigious awards and honors. Dr. Morton is the past president of the International Sentinel Node Society, the Society of Surgical Oncology, and the World Federation of Surgical Oncology Societies.

Dr. Morton was chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology at UCLA before establishing the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. As chief of the Melanoma Program, Dr. Morton has guided the Institute to its present position as an internationally respected melanoma center. As director of the Surgical Oncology Fellowship Program, Dr. Morton has trained more than 100 postdoctoral fellows, most of whom hold academic positions in medical schools or cancer institutes.