Mara B. Antonoff, M.D., F.A.C.S.
Assistant Professor
Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
Division of Surgery
UT MD Anderson Cancer Center
I recognize that the number of patients whom I will be able to individually affect is limited; however, by teaching the next generation of physicians, I feel that I’ve contributed to a greater cause, and that I’ve played a small role in the lives of the patients for whom those trainees will provide care, the families of those patients, the students whom those trainees teach, and the cycle goes on and on. It allows me to feel that I’ve impacted the future of our field, and perhaps created a legacy with more breadth than my own clinical practice and research efforts.
Dr. Antonoff completed her undergraduate studies in Chemistry and Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, after which she earned her medical degree at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis. She completed her internship and residency in General Surgery at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, where she served as Chief Administrative Surgical Resident. During her surgical residency, Dr. Antonoff completed 3 years of dedicated research time, including basic science benchwork examining the roles of heat shock proteins in cancer proliferation. During this period, she additionally focused on research in the areas of thoracic surgical clinical outcomes and surgical education, while completing the Association for Surgical Education’s Surgical Education Research Fellowship. Following her residency training, Dr. Antonoff completed a fellowship in Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, with a clinical focus in the General Thoracic track. She then joined the faculty at MD Anderson in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery in 2014 as Clinical Instructor. Dr. Antonoff became Assistant Professor in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery in 2015. Dr. Antonoff is board-certified for the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, having trained in all aspects of cardiothoracic disease, with special concentration on thoracic oncology, lung transplantation, and diseases of the foregut, and an emphasis on minimally invasive surgical therapies. Dr. Antonoff’s clinical research interests focus on lung cancer, with particular interest in exploring the impact of gender on lung cancer prognosis and therapy. She continues to be involved in educational research, aiming to improve curricular design and assessment tools in Thoracic Surgical training.
See full bio at faculty.mdanderson.org/profiles/Mara_Antonoff.html.
