Skip to main content

Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering

Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering

Home » Personnel » R. Daniel Beauchamp

R. Daniel Beauchamp

J C Foshee Distinguished Professor of Surgery

Dr. Beauchamp holds the academic title as the J.C. Foshee Distinguished Professor and Chairman, Section of Surgical Sciences, at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He is also Surgeon-in-Chief of the Vanderbilt University Hospitals. He holds joint appointments as Professor in the Departments of Cell and Developmental Biology and Cancer Biology.  He has trained graduate students who have completed Ph.D. degrees in each of those basic science departments. 

Dr. Beauchamp’s surgical training in General Surgery was completed at UTMB in Galveston. On completion of residency, he entered a research fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Harold L. Moses (one of the discoverers of TGF-β) in the department of Cell Biology at Vanderbilt University.  He received a Physician Scientist (K11) Award to fund his fellowship and his research for five years, two of which were spent at Vanderbilt under Dr. Moses’ mentorship and the next three at UTMB in Galveston under the mentorship of Drs. John Papaconstantinou (transcriptional regulation) and Aubrey Thompson (cell cycle) in the department of Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics. 

Dr. Beauchamp has maintained a clinical and research focus in the field of Cancer Cell Biology, with specific focus in GI Cancers including colorectal cancers and mediators of cancer cell invasion and metastasis since that time.  He has maintained NIH funding as a PI for over 20 years.  Dr. Beauchamp has been a member of the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center since his return to Nashville in December 2004, and has served as first Deputy Associate Director for Clinical Programs and then as Associate Director for Clinical/Translational Programs. In August 2011, he assumed the role of Deputy Director of the Cancer Center.  He has served a full term on the GCMB Study Section and continues to serve as a regular CSR reviewer for the NIH.  He has also served on the AGA Research Awards Panel and the AACR/PanCan Innovative Grants Scientific Review Committee. 

Dr. Beauchamp’s research focus is on molecular mechanisms of cancer invasion and metastasis and the discovery prognostic molecular biomarkers.