The Weisenthal Cancer Group was founded in 1992 by Larry Weisenthal, M.D., Ph.D., a board certified medical oncologist with 30 years experience in developing and applying laboratory testing methods to guide therapy selection for individual cancer patients. Weisenthal Cancer Group is a fully-licensed and accredited oncology laboratory (please click here to see for a link to California and CLIA license numbers) - although we see ourselves as a laboratory-based oncology practice. This is because Dr. Weisenthal believes that patients deserve more time and individualized attention than can be accorded under the traditional commercial reference laboratory model. Accordingly, Dr. Weisenthal spends a minimum of 6 and often more than 8 hours personally producing a functional tumor cell profile and therapy recommendation for each patient whose tumor cells are submitted for analysis. The administrative and laboratory staff consists of highly qualified and experienced professionals – people who work with pride and precision and are dedicated to providing the highest quality laboratory services for every cancer patient. We don't use reference numbers or diagnoses in our internal verbal communications - instead we always use the patient’s actual name. That is because everyone understands that each test result represents a real person’s best chance to receive the most effective chemotherapy.
Larry M. Weisenthal, M.D., Ph.D.
Biographical sketch:
Undergraduate chemistry major at University of Louisville, varsity swim
team; entered University of Michigan medical school after 3 years,
University awards consecutive years as most outstanding freshman, sophomore,
and junior man; M.D. and Ph.D. (Pharmacology, laboratory of Dr. Raymond W.
Ruddon) degrees from U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; internship and residency
in internal medicine, U. of Michigan; Clinical Associate, Medicine Branch,
National Cancer Institute and Lt Cmdr, USPHS, Bethesda, MD, 1 year
post-doctoral research, laboratory of Dr. Marc Lippman, NCI, Bethesda; Board
certification in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. Inventor of
the DiSC assay, a cell death based laboratory test for chemotherapy drug
activity; worked for 8 years in the Section of Hematology-Oncology at the
Long Beach VA hospital, as Staff Physician, Clinical Investigator in the VA
Central Office Career Development Program, and as Associate Professor of
Medicine In Residence at the U. of California Irvine. Three years service as
the oncology reviewer for the VA Research Advisory Group. Five years'
service on the Expert Advisory Committee for the NCI/NIH Antitumor Drug
Screening Program. Co-founded Oncotech (a national clinical laboratory
corporation).
Severed Oncotech ties Jan. 10, 1992, to found Weisenthal Cancer
Group, a laboratory-based medical oncology practice.
Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of the National
Cancer Institute (1993-98); Currently Associate Clinical Professor of
Medicine (Hematology/Oncology),
