Leadership
Meet Our Director
Dr. Jorge E. Cortes received his medical degree from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City. In September 2019, he joined Augusta University as the Director of the Georgia Cancer Center in Augusta, Georgia, after being at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for 27 years, where he was Professor of Medicine and Internist and had many roles in the Department of Leukemia and the Division of Cancer Medicine, including Deputy Department Chair, Chair of AML and CML Sections, Deputy Division Chair for MDACC Network.
As Director, Cortes continues the Georgia Cancer Center’s mission of obtaining National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation, while keeping the mission of ‘reducing the burden of cancer in the State of Georgia and across the globe through superior care, innovation and education’ at the forefront of all endeavors. He has over 230 grants and contracts where he was principal investigator and has led the approval of 4 drugs currently available for patients with leukemia. Dr. Cortes has authored more than 1,200 peer-review original research manuscripts with numerous other accolades towards his name and practice.
Dr. Cortes is a member of the National Academy of Medicine in Mexico and he has received numerous awards including the Michael J. Keating Outstanding Achievement Award (Keating Award), 2023, America’s Top Doctors, Castle Connolly Medical LTD., 2024, Highly Ranked Scholar, ScholarGPS, Lifetime Ranking #9, 2024, Wellstar MCG Patient Experience 5-Star Top Performer, 2024, Georgia 500 List, State’s Most Influential Leaders, Georgia Trend Magazine, 2024, Distinguished Faculty Award, Medical College of Georgia Faculty Senate, 2005.
Dr. Cortes has served as Associate Editor for Blood and serves on the editorial board
of multiple medical journals; he is currently a member of the Journals Committee of
the American Society of Hematology. Dr. Cortes is a member of the Board of Directors
of the International Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Foundation, President of the Latin American
Leukemia Net, member of the National CML Society Medical Advisory Board, member of
the International Steering Committee of the Japanese Society of Medical Oncology and serves on the Augusta University Faculty Development Committee. He has previously
served in the National Board of Directors of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. He is
a graduate of the 2021 Class of Leadership Augusta Executive Forum and serves on the
Boards of the Augusta Symphony and Greater Augusta Arts Council. He also now holds
the Cecil F. Whitaker Jr., GRA Eminent Scholar Chair in Cancer endowment.
Meet Our Deputy Director
David H. Munn, MD, is Professor of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at the Medical College of Georgia. Munn received his undergraduate degree from Mercer University, Macon, Georgia (1978), medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia (1984), and postdoctoral training at Rainbow Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
He is a physician-scientist and full-time researcher at the Medical College of Georgia since 1990. Munn’s research is focused on activating the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. His laboratory works on discovering the ways in which cancers suppress the immune system and identifying the mechanisms that tumors use to escape from immune attack.
Munn and his collaborators have developed new drugs and clinical strategies to activate the immune response against tumors, and to enlist the patients’ own immune system to enhance the effectiveness and lower the toxicity of conventional chemotherapy drugs. Target diseases include adult and pediatric solid tumors and leukemias. Munn’s research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and is supported by multiple charitable foundation donors.
Associate Directors
Administrative Leadership
Domingo Valpuesta
- Associate Vice President
- Cancer Services, Wellstar MCG Health
762-375-1229
Angela Hornsby, MBA, BSN, RN, OCN
- Clinical Director
- Outpatient Oncology, Wellstar MCG Health
706-721-1498
Barbara McFarland, MBA
- Director
- Cancer Center Outpatient Services, Wellstar MCG Health
762-375-5322
Research Program Leadership
- Leader, Cancer Immunology, Inflammation, and Tolerance (CIIT) Division
