Dr. William G. Nelson, a renowned expert in translational cancer research from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, will deliver the keynote commencement address to UConn Health’s Classes of 2022.
Nelson, who specializes in the treatment and research of prostate cancer, is the Marion I. Knott Professor of Oncology and director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. He holds professorships in oncology, medicine, pharmacology, pathology, radiation oncology, urology, and environmental health sciences.
“The key message I want to deliver is that the new graduates will need to ensure that the human element is preserved or amplified,” Nelson says. “When it comes to disease and its treatment, people will need caring as much as care.”
His studies of prostate cancer have yielded new insights into the causes of the disease and new products for its detection. Asked what he sees as the greatest challenge facing this next generation of clinicians and researchers, Nelson says, “Health care delivery and financing are likely to change dramatically — hopefully in such a way as to minimize disparities in outcomes among the historically marginalized populations in the U.S. and throughout the world.”
In addition to holding the most professorships in Hopkins history, Nelson serves on the boards of the V Foundation and the Break Through Cancer Foundation, as a scientific co-chair for Stand Up 2 Cancer, and as executive editor of Cancer Today.
Nelson earned both his MD and Ph.D. at Hopkins, completing his doctoral training in 1987, and stayed for residency training in medicine and fellowship training in oncology. Two of his classmates at Hopkins today have appointments on the UConn School of Medicine faculty: Dr. Emily Germain-Lee and Dr. Se-Jin Lee.
Nelson has another connection to UConn. Before attending Hopkins, as an undergraduate studying chemistry at Yale University, he was a member of the soccer team, and scored one of the goals in a 3-2 win over the Huskies in Storrs late in the 1977 season.
“UConn may have had the last laugh,” Nelson says. “When I returned to play two years later in a game we really needed to win, the Huskies defeated us. Then two years after that, UConn won the national championship.”
More than 40 years later, UConn will confer Nelson with an honorary doctor of science degree.
“I wish I had a better sense for the dramatic ascendancy of the social determinants of health on disease and its treatment,” Nelson says, reflecting on what he knows today compared to the day of his medical school commencement. “Lifestyle is now the dominant influence on mortality in the U.S. and throughout the world.”
