Indian American physician scientist Sidharth (Sid) V. Puram has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), one of the nation’s oldest and most respected medical honor societies.
Puram is co-director of The Robert Ebert and Greg Stubblefield Head and Neck Tumor Center at Siteman Cancer Center at at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, where Puram also is the Lindburg Professor and chair of the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.
Election to ASCI is a recognition of outstanding scholarly achievement and impactful, sustained work that advances the understanding, diagnosis or treatment of human disease.
Puram has advanced scientists’ understanding of tumor growth, treatment resistance and metastasis in head and neck cancers — discoveries that have opened new options for treating these challenging tumors, according to a media release.
His research explores the complex ecosystem of diverse cells within a tumor and how they communicate with one another, using single-cell and spatial analyses to understand tumors in exquisite detail.
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His work has helped define the cellular and molecular diversity within head and neck cancers, informed several innovative clinical trials and identified potential therapeutic targets to improve patient outcomes.
Puram earned a PhD and MD in Biology and Biomedical Science from Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA after graduating with a BS in Biology and Neuroscience, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Puram and two other WashU Medicine physicians elected to the society this year were formally inducted at the 2026 annual joint meeting of the ASCI, the Association of American Physicians and the American Physician Scientists Association in Chicago.
The ASCI focuses on the special role of physician-scientists in research, clinical care and medical education, as well as their leadership in academic medicine and industry.
Founded in 1908, the ASCI recognizes early- to mid-career physician scientists who have made significant contributions to translational or clinical research.