Suzanne Bartholf DeWitt

Dr. DeWitt completed undergraduate studies in biology at Yale University in 1997.  She pursued research in animal behavior and ecology including long-term research projects in Oklahoma, Hawaii, Alaska, and Argentina.  Shifting her focus to medicine, Dr. DeWitt graduated from NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine in 2007 and then practiced small-animal clinical medicine in the Triangle region.  In 2013, Dr. DeWitt returned to research, focusing on comparative oncology.  Her current research interests include comparative genomics of sarcomas, particularly osteosarcomas.  Additionally, Dr. DeWitt is establishing a formal sarcoma database to gather and make the best use of information from all patients with sarcomas treated at Duke.  She has developed a similar database as well as a tissue bank for tumor samples from canine patients with sarcomas treated at local veterinary hospitals.  Dr. DeWitt has worked with an ongoing study of an imaging device used to detect residual cancer cells at the time of surgical removal of solid tumors in canines (see A Novel Intraoperative Imaging System to Detect Residual Cancer).   In collaboration with Dr. Jason Somarelli, she is researching cellular phenotypic plasticity driving metastasis in sarcomas.  As Assistant Director of the Duke Comparative Oncology Group, Dr. DeWitt aims to facilitate further collaborations between human and veterinary oncology researchers.