Women in Medicine and Science – Julie E. Bauman, MD, MPH

Julie E. Bauman, MD, MPH, is a professor with tenure and the inaugural chair for the Department of Interdisciplinary Oncology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, as well as senior medical director of Oncology Research at Banner Health.

She recently returned to Arizona and is excited to continue her groundbreaking work on cancer therapeutics for both prevention and treatment. “My parents were physicians, and we came to Arizona because of their commitment to caring for underserved communities, initially border and American Indian communities. From a very young age, I understood medicine as both science and service,” she said.

For Dr. Bauman, that science — the discovery of treatments — only matters if it reaches the people who need it most. Fortunately, she sees the present as an extraordinary time in cancer research and healing. “We understand the biology of cancer at a level that would have been unimaginable when I entered medicine. The pressing question now is: How do we translate that knowledge into better outcomes for people?”

Part of the answer to that query is how she will structure the U of A College of Medicine – Phoenix’s new Department of Interdisciplinary Oncology. The two areas she sees as having tremendous promise are translational immunology and cancer prevention.

“I am particularly excited about precision immunotherapy. Many of my patients have described their cancer as a betrayal by their own body, and biologically, their intuition is right. A cancer cell is one of our very own cells; it is is 99.9% ‘self,’” Dr. Bauman explained. “The challenge is to identify the tiny fraction that makes a cancer unique then teach the body’s own immune system to recognize and attack it while sparing normal tissue.”

To do that, she hopes to continue the development of personalized cancer vaccines, which target mutations unique to an individual patient’s tumor. “Having cared for patients with devastating autoimmune toxicity from immunotherapy, I want us to harness the extraordinary power of the immune system with far greater precision,” Dr. Bauman said.

Her additional role as senior medical director of Oncology Research at Banner Health will allow her to directly bring that future science to patients — bridging precision immunotherapy with cancer prevention. “Ten years from now, I hope we are harnessing the immune system not only to treat cancer more precisely and with less toxicity, but increasingly to prevent cancer from developing or progressing,” she said.

To pave the way to the cancer treatments of the future, Dr. Bauman is currently co-leading two national NCI-funded research efforts across that continuum: the University of Arizona Cancer Prevention Clinical Trials Network — which conducts early-phase prevention trials — and the NRG NCORP Research Base, where she serves as deputy principal investigator and chair of Cancer Prevention. In the latter, she is designing large, practice-changing cancer prevention and control trials.

“I want to bring that developmental-therapeutics mindset to the emerging science of translational immunology in Phoenix. Imagine moving from discovering something distinctive about a patient's cancer and immune response, to developing a personalized intervention such as a neoantigen vaccine, to testing it in an early-phase clinical trial — and then taking what we learn from that patient back into the laboratory,” she said. “That continuous movement from bench to bedside and back again is the translational ecosystem I want to build.”

In addition to her ongoing research work, Dr. Bauman hopes to inspire the next generation to keep pushing the science forward. “I believe in leading by example. I still see patients, I am still an investigator and I still get excited by a great scientific question,” she said. “I want to develop young investigators who are on fire with bringing science to patients. I also want them to understand that they don't have to follow a predetermined career path. My own career has crossed medicine and public health, prevention and treatment, science and leadership.”

Her advice: “Stay curious, follow the questions that excite you and don't worry too much about designing the perfect career before you have begun it.”

That enthusiasm is also carried over to her collaboration with fellow women in medicine and science. Dr. Bauman noted how fortunate she has been to have had women leaders visible throughout her career. It was through their example that she could envision her own path.

“For me, leadership has never been about the title. It is about asking: What is my purpose, and where can I have the greatest impact? I believe deeply in leadership that brings people together around common purpose and inspires them toward a shared vision,” she said.

Dr. Bauman also stressed how important it is for women to mentor and sponsor one another — opening doors and ensuring women have greater representation in leadership. “As we advance, we have a responsibility to make the pathway broader for those who follow us,” she said.