Brief Biography

Dr. James A. Whitlock is the Division Head and Women’s Auxiliary Millennium Chair in Haematology/Oncology at The Hospital for Sick Children and Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto.

Prior to his arrival at SickKids in 2010, Dr. Whitlock was the Craig-Weaver Professor of Paediatrics in the Division of Paediatric Hematology-Oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. After earning his medical degree from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, he completed his residency in Paediatrics at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, and remained at Vanderbilt to pursue fellowships in the Divisions of Paediatric Genetics and Paediatric Hematology-Oncology.  

During his 12-year tenure as Division Director, the Paediatric Oncology program at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital Program tripled in size, was ranked #7 nationally for Cancer Care in Child Magazine’s survey of Best Children’s Hospitals (2005), and ranked among the Top 25 children’s cancer programs in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report survey. Dr. Whitlock has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including Phi Beta Kappa, the David T. Karzon Award for outstanding research during his residency, and the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. He has been recognized in America’s Top Doctors (Castle Connolly) and The Best Doctors in America annually since 2006.

Dr. Whitlock’s research interests include the biology and treatment of childhood acute leukemias, the development of new drugs for the treatment of childhood cancers, the biology and treatment of childhood cancers in Down syndrome, and the biology and treatment of histiocytic disorders. He is the President-Elect of the Histiocyte Society and a member of the Board of Directors of the Histiocytosis Association of America. He serves as the Vice-Chair for New Agents and Relapse studies for the Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Committee of the Children’s Oncology Group, and has served as Chair or Vice-Chair of several national clinical trials for the Children’s Cancer Group and the Children’s Oncology Group. He is a founding member of the Paediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Investigators’ Consortium (POETIC) and serves on its Executive Committee. He is the lead investigator for an international trial for relapsed T-cell ALL through the Therapeutic Advances in Childhood Leukemia (TACL) consortium, and was recently elected to Chair its Steering & Prioritization Committee by his peers. He has organized and co-chaired international conferences on Down Syndrome and ALL, and New Agents in ALL. He has authored or co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed or invited manuscripts and book chapters, and served on the Program Committees for the Histiocyte Society, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the American Society of Paediatric Hematology/Oncology.