Diane Simeone, MD

Diane Simeone, MD, is the director of Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health. She provides the overall strategic and intellectual direction for the center’s research programs, administrative structure, and multidisciplinary cancer clinical care. She serves as the principal investigator for the Cancer Center’s support grant sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Simeone partners with academic and clinical leaders to guide cancer research and care and provides counsel to campus and university-level committees. She manages day-to-day operations, including scientific, education, and clinical programs.
Prior to her current role, Simeone served as the director of the Pancreatic Cancer Center and was the associate director of translational research at Perlmutter Cancer Center at New York University Langone Health. She is an internationally renowned pancreatic surgeon and researcher with a long-standing career focused on treating pancreatic cancer and pancreatic cystic tumors. Throughout her career, she has driven innovation in cancer care by building a continuum between scientific discovery and new approaches for cancer detection and treatment. She has published more than 230 studies in leading peer-reviewed journals.
Simeone served as the chair of the scientific and medical advisory board of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network and is a past president of the American Pancreatic Association and Society of University Surgeons. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and is a member of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Pancreatic Cancer Task force and the NCI Cancer Centers Study Section. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
She is the principal investigator and lead of Precision Promise, a national clinical trials consortium focused on next-generation clinical trials for people with pancreatic cancer. She is also the founder of the Pancreatic Cancer Early Detection (PRECEDE) Consortium, an international consortium established to drive the early detection of pancreatic cancer.