Emilie & Roland T. deHellebranth Professorship of Surgery II

This Professorship was established in 2022, when the value of the endowment of the Emilie & Roland T. deHellebranth Professorship of Surgery had increased sufficiently to support a second professorship. The original Professorship was established in 1979 through the gift of Mrs. Emilie deHellebranth (1914–2001), widow of the late Roland T. deHellebranth (d. 1979), a surgeon in private practice who, for many years until his retirement, was associated with the Graduate Hospital of Philadelphia. 

The deHellebranth Professorship is the first endowed chair for a particular hospital affiliated with the Perelman School of Medicine. It satisfied the wishes of Dr. deHellebranth that the Department of Surgery at Graduate Hospital maintain a cooperative relationship with Penn for the purpose of strengthening both departments with respect to teaching, research, and patient care. 

Current Chairholder
Giorgos C. Karakousis, MD

Giorgos C. Karakousis, MD, is a Professor of Surgery and the Chief of the Division of Endocrine and Oncologic Surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Chair of the Cancer Committee at the Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center. He serves as an endocrine and oncologic surgeon as part of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Program, Melanoma and Cutaneous Malignancies Program and Sarcoma Program.

Dr. Karakousis is a national member of the American College of Surgeons, Association for Academic Surgery, Melanoma International Foundation, Society of Surgical Oncology, Society of University Surgeons, Halsted Society and America Surgical Association. He also serves as a panel member for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines. He earned his BS and MS in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and his MD from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Karakousis has also authored or co-authored over 350 peer-reviewed publications and serves on the editorial board for four journals related to surgical oncology.

Dr. Karakousis's translational research primarily focuses on identifying and validating new biomarkers for melanoma. These include immune prognostic markers in the lymph system in the context of new and emerging immunotherapies. He has served as principal investigator (PI) or co-investigator on numerous trials and has been involved in multiple multicenter studies. He has given many invited lectures related to melanoma nationally and internationally. He is the PI of a neoadjuvant stage II trial in melanoma and is Co-PI of one of the main core projects in the melanoma SPORE, studying the impact of immune checkpoint blockade in early-stage melanoma on the draining regional lymph nodes.