Randall W. Burt MD

Randall W. Burt, MD, is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Utah and Emeritus Director of Prevention and Outreach at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI).  He served as HCI’s Senior Director of Prevention and Outreach from February, 2001, through Octrober, 2013, serving also as Interim Senior Director of Clinical Affairs from April, 2012, through March, 2013. He was Director of HCI’s High Risk Colon Cancer Clinic 2001-October, 2013, and was co-leader of the Cancer Center Support Grant’s Gastrointestinal Cancers Program from 2008 to 2013. He was co-leader of the Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program for five years. In addition, he served as Interim Executive Director of HCI for 15 months before re-assuming co-leadership of the Gastrointestinal Cancers Program. Other past administrative positions at the University of Utah include Chief of Medical Service at the Salt Lake City Veterans Administration Medical Center for two years and GI Division Chief at the University of Utah School of Medicine for six years. He is a leader in policy making for average- and high-risk colon cancer screening nationally and internationally, and has served as a member of the American Cancer Society National Advisory Committee on Colorectal Cancer, the Governing Board of the American Gastroenterological Association, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for the Prevention of Colorectal Cancer. He has served on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Colorectal Cancer Screening Panel for six years and has chaired that committee from 2006 to the present. He has been on the advisory committee of the NIH Colon Cancer Familial Registry for 10 years, and was chairman for 5 years.  His research and administrative work has been instrumental in establishing the colon cancer screening guidelines now used by all major health policy organizations, in particular those for high-risk familial and inherited colon cancer conditions.

Dr. Burt is a clinical genetics investigator (gastroenterologist) whose career has involved research in the inheritance of colorectal cancer and the identification of colon cancer susceptibility genes. He was one of the first investigators to describe common inheritance of colonic adenomatous polyps segregating with colorectal cancer. He was involved with identifying the APC gene, describing the attenuated polyposis syndrome, developing strategies for genetic testing and surveillance for inherited and familial high-risk colon cancer, and designing, obtaining funding, and completing clinical trials for chemoprevention in sporadic and inherited colon cancer.  Related projects include study of genetic environmental interactions and gene-gene interactions that give rise to colon cancer.  His chief clinical focus is on cancer prevention through appropriate screening for colorectal and other cancers, with particular attention given to increased risk factors in inherited and non-inherited polyposis syndromes.  Dr. Burt has been a principal investigator on several large NIH studies of colon cancer, including program projects, and has authored or co-authored numerous textbook chapters and articles in major scientific journals, several of which are considered seminal.