For Christopher Lieu, MD, the recognition of his peers for the quality of his clinical work with patients with cancer is both a source of pride and a challenge.
Being named one of 21 University of Colorado Department of Medicine faculty members in the inaugural class of the department’s Clinical Excellence Society (CES) “is one of the biggest honors I’ll ever have in my career,” he says. “When you grow up wanting to be a doctor, you want to be someone who really cares about patients and who does a good job taking care of them. It’s also very humbling, knowing that we need to do even better, particularly in the field of cancer. Our patients and their families deserve better. So while I’m very proud of this, it’s also motivating for me to do better.”
Lieu wears many hats on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus and beyond. A professor in the Division of Medical Oncology, where he is a member of its Gastrointestinal Cancer and Developmental Therapeutics research programs, Lieu also is associate director for clinical research at the CU Cancer Center and co-director of GI Medical Oncology. He is the inaugural holder of the Sohrab Amini, MD, FACS, Endowed Chair in Pancreatic Cancer Research. He is part of an independent translational research program in cell signaling and immunotherapy in GI cancers in collaboration with his medical oncology colleague, Todd Pitts, PhD, and he serves on the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s Oncology Drugs Advisory Committee, which evaluates and votes on cancer drug approvals.
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Asked how his research aligns with his clinical work, Lieu says: “Seeing patients brings everything together. Those roles all really funnel to the patients. When you see a patient with a diagnosis who needs treatment, the ability to offer the most cutting-edge research is what motivates you in the lab, to provide patients with hope, especially with cancer.”
As for helping to lead clinical research in the CU Cancer Center, “again, it all comes back to the patient,” Lieu says. “If we’re able to provide structure where outstanding investigators can bring their research from the bench to the bedside to conduct clinical trials, and if we can do that fast, patients can receive those drugs faster and we can help more patients, and that’s really exciting.”
The son of a doctor
In pursuing medicine, Lieu didn’t fall too far from the tree. “My dad was a family medicine doctor in a small town in North Carolina. What stood out to me when I was a kid was his ability to care for patients through good times and sometimes really hard times, and to provide compassionate care. At the time, I thought, what an incredible honor it would be to serve people in that way.”
Through high school, college, and into medical school, Lieu also felt drawn to science and research. “It was a combination of wanting to take great care of people and also the excitement of the research side of medicine.”
→ Christopher Lieu, MD, Named Vice Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network
Lieu calls cancer “the fastest moving field in medicine. The way we treat cancer five years from now will look nothing like the way we treat cancer today. Even with all the advances, we need to get so much better at preventing and diagnosing and treating cancer. We never want to stand still, particularly in cancer.”
As for his interest in GI cancers, Lieu notes that both of his grandfathers passed away from stomach cancer. He also credits “some of the best mentors he could have asked for” who specialized in GI Medical Oncology during his residency at CU Anschutz and his fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas.
‘Genuine care and concern’
In their letter nominating Lieu for CES honors, Wells Messersmith, MD, FACP, FASCO, and Virginia Borges, MD, MMSc – division head and deputy head of medical oncology respectively – called Lieu a “pre-eminent GI medical oncologist with a national and international reputation. He receives referrals from all over the state of Colorado, as well as nationally. Dr. Lieu is a national leader in the treatment of young adults with colorectal cancer, and he has developed a specialized clinical program for these patients in our cancer center. It’s not infrequent that we have patients who demand to see Dr. Lieu and are willing to wait an extra week if he is not immediately available.”
→ Christopher Lieu, MD, is Part of Team Overseeing Multimillion Dollar Colorectal Cancer Initiative
In a letter supporting Lieu’s CES induction, Lisa Fosnot, MD, an associate professor in the Division of Hospital Medicine who has collaborated with Lieu on patient care for several years, wrote: “His compassionate nature stands out prominently. He does not merely perform his duties, but he does so with genuine care and concern for the well-being of his patients and colleagues alike.”
Asked for his philosophy in caring for patients, Lieu describes three pillars: Providing compassionate care, cutting edge care, and multidisciplinary care. “And always understand that the patient is your responsibility.”
Photo at top: Christopher Lieu, MD (center) is inducted into the CU Department of Medicine's Clinical Excellence Society by department Chair Vineet Chopra, MD, MSc (left) and John Carethers, MD, vice chancellor for health sciences at the University of California, San Diego, at a ceremony on February 8, 2024. Photo by Paul Wedlake for the CU Department of Medicine.
