Calixto-Hope (CJ) G. Lucas Jr., MD

2026 Benjamin Castleman Award

Calixto-Hope (CJ) G. Lucas Jr., MD is an Assistant Professor of Pathology, Oncology, and Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University and divides his time between clinical service, medical education, and translational research. He serves as Director of the Clinical Neuropathology Service for Johns Hopkins Hospital, Associate Program Director of the Anatomic Pathology Residency and Neuropathology Fellowship Programs, and Course Director of Organ Systems Foundations of Medicine: Neoplasia for the School of Medicine.

Dr. Lucas earned his B.S. degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology & History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from Johns Hopkins University and M.D. degree from University of California, San Francisco. He continued at University of California, San Francisco and completed residency training in anatomic pathology and fellowship training in neuropathology while serving as pathology chief resident and completing additional coursework on health professions education.

His academic interest is in leveraging multi-omic profiling to refine existing brain tumor classification and prognostication schemes and has co-authored more than 80 manuscripts in this space in journals including Science, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Neuro Oncology, and Cancer Discovery. Recently, he demonstrated multiple applications of spatial transcriptomic profiling in assessing molecular heterogeneity and evolution in high-grade meningiomas to inform new preclinical models. He is also interested in neoplasms arising in the pediatric population as well as in patients with tumor predisposition syndromes as evidenced by his investigation of NF1-associated gliomas that uncovered a novel epigenetic signature for NF1-associated pilocytic astrocytoma and molecular heterogeneity among NF1-associated high-grade gliomas. Collaboratively, he provides expert interpretation of morphologic, immunohistochemical, and molecular findings across tumor samples for various multidisciplinary clinical and translational projects as co-investigator on extramural grants and pathology chair on multisite clinical trials. He has published multiple pathology manuscripts describing the clinical and pathologic features of emerging molecularly defined tumor entities and is a contributing author to the WHO Classification of Tumors. His mission-driven research continues to center on omic-focused studies that will guide risk stratification and therapeutic decision making for affected neuro-oncology patients.