Brendan Visser

Brendan C. Visser, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery; Director, Gastrointestinal Cancer Care Program, Stanford Cancer Center; Stanford University School of Medicine

Research Description: Dr. Visser is the Medical Director of the GI Cancer Care Program at the Stanford Cancer Center. He is also the program director for the Stanford Hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) Surgery fellowship program. His research focus includes an interest in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor biology, biomarker discovery for early detection of pancreatic adenocarcinoma, minimally invasive pancreatic and liver surgery, management of hepatobiliary cancers and pancreatic surgery in non-neoplastic settings including pancreatitis and acute injury. Together with his longtime collaborator in the SHC Benign Pancreas Program, Dr. Walter Park, and other members of the PCRG including Drs. Meyer and Kim, he is a key member of the team developing an autologous islet transplant program at the Stanford University Hospitals.

Selected relevant publications (Stanford PCRG members in bold):

  1. Krampitz GW, George BM, Willingham SB, Volkmer JP, Weiskopf K, Jahchan N, Newman AM, Sahoo D, Zemek AJ, Yanovsky RL, Nguyen JK, Schnorr PJ, Mazur PK, Sage J, Longacre TA, Visser BC, Poultsides GA, Norton JA, Weissman IL. Identification of tumorigenic cells and therapeutic targets on pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2016 Apr 19;113(16) 4464-9.

  2. Chen Y, Zak Y, Hernandez-Boussard T, Park W, Visser BC. The epidemiology of idiopathic acute pancreatitis, analysis of the nationwide inpatient sample from 1998 to 2007. Pancreas. 2013 Jan;42(1):1-5.

  3. Poultsides GA, Huang LC, Chen Y, Visser BC, Pai RK, Jeffrey RB, Park WG, Chen AM, Kunz PL, Fisher GA, Norton JA. Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors: radiographic calcifications correlate with grade and metastasis. Ann Surg Oncol. 2012 Jul;19(7):2295-303.

  4. Qadan M, Visser B, Kim J, Pai R, Triadafilopoulos G. Abdominal mass, anemia, diabetes mellitus, and necrolytic migratory erythema. Dig Dis Sci. 2012 Jun;57(6):1465-8.

  5. Tun MT, Pai RK, Kwok S, Dong A, Gupta A, Visser BC, Norton JA, Poultsides GA, Banerjee S, Van Dam J, Chen AM, Friedland S, Scott BA, Verma R, Lowe AW, Park WG. Diagnostic accuracy of cyst fluid amphiregulin in pancreatic cysts. BMC Gastroenterol. 2012 Feb 14;12:15

  6. Dalerba P, Kalisky T, Sahoo D, Rajendran PS, Rothenberg ME, Leyrat AA, Sim S, Okamoto J, Johnston DM, Qian D, Zabala M, Bueno J, Neff NF, Wang J, Shelton AA, Visser BC, Hisamori S, Shimono Y, van de Wetering M, Clevers H, Clarke MF, Quake SR. Single-cell dissection of transcriptional heterogeneity in human colon tumors. Nat Biotechnol. 2011 Nov 13; 29(12):1120-7.

  7. Norton JA, Harris EJ, Chen Y, Visser BC, Poultsides GA, Kunz PC, Fisher GA, Jensen RT. Pancreatic endocrine tumors with major vascular abutment, involvement, or encasement and indication for resection. Arch Surg. 2011 Jun; 146(6):724-32.