# John M. Kirkwood

Source: https://onco.cc/people/john-kirkwood/  
OnCo record `john-kirkwood` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Pittsburgh melanoma doctor who ran the interferon trials that were the first adjuvant treatment for high-risk melanoma, and later led CheckMate 76K on adjuvant nivolumab for stage II disease.

## Summary

John Kirkwood leads the melanoma programme at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and led the ECOG trials of high-dose interferon alfa-2b in the 1990s, the first adjuvant therapy shown to reduce melanoma relapse. He was first author of the 2023 Nature Medicine report of CheckMate 76K, in which adjuvant nivolumab improved recurrence-free survival compared with placebo in resected stage IIB or IIC melanoma.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-18
- Tags: melanoma; adjuvant; trialist
- Role: Melanoma medical oncologist, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center
- Specialisms: Adjuvant therapy for melanoma; Interferon; Immunotherapy

## Connected records

- cancers: [Melanoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/melanoma/), [Stage IIB and IIC melanoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/stage-ii-melanoma/), [Stage III melanoma (after surgery)](https://onco.cc/cancers/stage-iii-melanoma/)
- institutions: [UPMC Hillman Cancer Center](https://onco.cc/institutions/upmc-hillman/)
- key papers: [CheckMate 76K: adjuvant nivolumab in resected stage IIB or IIC melanoma](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-checkmate-76k-nat-med-2023/)

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