Richard Childs, MD, CMDR, USPHS
Bethesda, Maryland

Richard W. Childs, MD, CMDR, USPHS is a senior clinical investigator in the Hematology Branch of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr Childs received his medical degree from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Florida in Gainesville and fellowships in oncology and hematology at the National Cancer Institute.

Dr Childs is principal investigator of numerous ongoing clinical trials at the NIH. He is a leader in the field of hematopoietic stem cell transplant research whose critical work has informed and greatly advanced his field. Dr Childs was the first to establish the existence of a graft-vs-solid tumor effect mediated by transplanted donor T-cells that could cure patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. He has conducted bench and translational research characterizing the immune mechanisms accounting for the GVT effect and developed methods to enhance this effect using allogeneic NK cells. His research interests include tumor immunology and allogeneic immunotherapy for solid tumors and hematological malignancies focusing on methods to increase the susceptibility of tumors to immune attack by T-cells and natural killer (NK) cells.

Dr Childs serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Translational Medicine, Drug Discovery Today, and Bone Marrow Transplantation. He has contributed to more than 20 text book chapters on bone marrow transplantation and 100 original peer-reviewed manuscripts in journals such as Lancet, Blood, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, and the New England Journal of Medicine. In recognition of his scientific and clinical achievements, he has been the recipient of several awards including the 2001 NIH Clinical Center Director’s Award, the 2002 NHLBI Award for Scientific Merit, the 2004 NIH Director’s Award, the 2008 United States Public Health Service Distinguished Service Medal, was the recipient of the 2008 NIH Distinguished Clinical Teacher Award, and was inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation in Chicago in April 2009.