Dr. Ferris is a co-Founder and scientific advisor for Novasenta. He is Lineberger Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of the UNC Lineberger Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Ferris currently serves on the Editorial Boards. He serves on multiple scientific advisory boards for early phase biotech companies.
Dr. Ferris has published over 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts, which have been cited over 45,000 times producing an h-index over 100. He served as co-chair of the NCI Steering Committee for 6 years to facilitate prospective cancer clinical trials. Dr. Ferris has been lead investigator of several practice-changing, prospective randomized trials, including Checkmate-141 which led to the FDA approval of nivolumab immunotherapy for head and neck cancer in 2016; ECOG 3311, testing radiation dose-deintensification for HPV+ oropharynx cancer; and ECOG-ACRIN 3132, using disruptive p53 mutation for molecular staging of high-risk cancer. The Ferris Lab has been continuously funded by the NCI since 2005, focused on neoadjuvant “window” trials of immune-oncology agents, and developing single-cell RNA sequencing and proteomic technologies for novel therapeutics and biomarkers of response in the tumor microenvironment, collaborating with many early phase biotech companies to develop new therapeutic agents.