BYLINE: Denise Heady

Newswise — Dr. Bryan Burt, an internationally recognized surgeon-scientist and surgical oncologist, has joined UCLA Health and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA as the new chief of thoracic surgery and professor of surgery.

Burt specializes in minimally-invasive robotic thoracic surgery for the treatment of lung cancer, esophageal cancer, thymic tumors and other thoracic malignancies. He also has extensive experience in translational research. Along with leading the thoracic surgical team, Burt will run a research laboratory in the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center studying response and resistance mechanisms to immunotherapy in thoracic malignancies, including lung cancer and mesothelioma, and is investigating a novel proteomics platform for improving intraoperative diagnosis and margin assessment in lung cancer.

“Dr. Burt is an invaluable addition to our leadership team,” said Dr. Joe Hines, chair and professor of surgery in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the William P. Longmire, Jr., chair in surgery and surgeon-in-chief at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. “His expertise will help drive transformative advancements in thoracic oncology and surgical technology at UCLA.”

Prior to coming to UCLA, Burt was the chief of thoracic surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He was also a member of the graduate faculty in the department of Immunology and microbiology and the graduate school of biomedical sciences at Baylor. 

Burt obtained his undergraduate education at New York University and his medical degree at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in 2003. He completed residencies in general surgery and thoracic surgery at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital and a post-doctoral research fellowship in cellular immunology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. 

“I am delighted to join the UCLA Health system, to support our world-class teams to advance the field of thoracic oncology, and provide the highest level of multidisciplinary care to patients with thoracic malignancies,” said Burt.