Chad Pecot, M.D. is a tenured Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina in the Department of Medicine and Director of Translational Research in the Division of Oncology. He specializes in lung cancer and other rarer thoracic malignancies. As a prior cancer patient, he is passionate about uncovering important findings in cancer biology and translating them to the clinic as rapidly as possible. His work covers several disciplines: 1) non-coding RNA regulation of cancer metastases, 2) non-canonical mechanisms governing the tumor microenvironment, and 3) how RNA interference can be exploited for therapeutic means. Over the past decade, Dr. Pecot has taken several approaches integrating bioinformatics with cell biology, novel metastasis models and RNA-based therapeutics. His work with large multidisciplinary teams to investigate cancer biology has led to several high-impact publications in many of the field’s top journals. In addition to Chad’s accomplishments, he is also very passionate about promoting the next generation of scientists. Many of his trainees have received numerous competitive awards, and several have gone on to have leadership roles in industry or independent faculty appointments in academia. His long-term goal is to translate his findings to the cancer clinic with the ultimate hope that they will fundamentally impact treatment paradigms in several aggressive malignancies.