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Anne Marie Lennon, an internationally recognized leader in precancerous pancreatic lesions and early cancer detection, is the new chair of the Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s Department of Medicine and chair of medicine at UPMC, effective March 1. She will also be recommended for appointment as the Jack D. Myers, MD, Professor of Internal Medicine.

Lennon comes to Pitt from the Johns Hopkins University Â鶹´«Ã½ of Medicine, where she serves as the Moses and Helen Golden Paulson Professor of Gastroenterology and director of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. A highly accomplished physician-scientist, Lennon’s research focuses on the development of tests for early cancer identification and their translation into clinical practice.

Along with colleagues, Lennon has developed a novel panel combining molecular evaluation of pancreatic cyst fluid with clinical and imaging features that could decrease unnecessary pancreatic operations by 60%. She is the senior author of a study that described the concept of combining circulating tumor DNA with cancer protein markers for cancer detection, which her team later expanded to a screen for eight common cancers — esophageal, gastric, colorectal, liver, pancreatic, lung, ovarian and breast — from a simple blood test. Additionally, Lennon is first author on the first-ever interventional study of a multi-cancer early detection, which demonstrated the feasibility of using a blood test to detect early cancers in individuals with no history of the disease.

An advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion, Lennon co-chaired the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy’s Women’s Task Force, which highlighted inequities in pay and career advancement. She is a fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology, the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE). In 2023, she was designated Master of ASGE, a distinction bestowed on a select group of ASGE members who have demonstrated outstanding contributions to teaching and patient care in gastrointestinal endoscopy.