Ji Jiafu

Ji Jiafu was born in December 1959 in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.[11]

In 1977, Ji took the first gaokao after the Cultural Revolution and was admitted to the Inner Mongolia Medical College; he graduated with a bachelor's degree in December 1982.[12][4] He resumed study at the then Beijing Medical University from September 1987 to July 1990 and earned a master's degree in oncology.[4]

Ji also studied abroad. As a postdoctoral fellow, he researched the gene expression profiles in multiple cancers (including human gastric cancer) at Stanford University in the U.S. from January 1999 to March 2000.[13][4] Then, from January 2012 to October 2015, he studied oncology at Cardiff University in the U.K. and received a Ph.D. degree.[4][13]

Ji started working as a resident at the Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University in 1982 immediately after his graduation.[4] He left in 1987 for Beijing and became an associate professor of surgery in 1990 at the Peking University School of Oncology.[4] In 2000, he was promoted to become a professor of surgery and the director of the Gastrointestinal Surgical Department / Gastrointestinal Cancer Center at the Peking University Cancer Hospital.[4] In July 2011, Ji was appointed president of the Peking University Cancer Hospital / School of Oncology & Beijing Institute for Cancer Research, and in January 2013, director of the Key Laboratory in "Malignancy Pathogenesis and Translational Research" under the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China; his term as the president ended in June 2022.[4][8]

In 1996, Ji initiated the construction of the Peking University Cancer Hospital Gastric Cancer Biobank.[14] By 2019, the biobank had stored more than two million samples and contributed to 104 research projects, including the International Cancer Genome Consortium.[15]

From 2006 to 2014, Ji participated in the capecitabine and oxaliplatin adjuvant study in stomach cancer (CLASSIC) study, in which he was the principal investigator for the Chinese subgroup.[16][17] His results showed that in patients with advanced gastric cancer, the adjuvant capecitabine and oxaliplatin (CAPOX) chemotherapy increased the 3-year disease-free survival rate after gastrectomy with D2 lymphadenectomy[Note 1] from 56% to 78%, hence establishing CAPOX as the preferred option of peri-operative treatment for gastric cancer in China.[17][6]

In 2008, Ji introduced a "modularized" version of D2 gastrectomy. In his own words, the modularized gastrectomy "dissembles the procedure into 12 ordered modules, each with standardized operational steps, making the surgery a safe and standard process."[15] He has since been promoting such an approach across China, and by 2019, the nationwide mortality rate of D2 gastrectomy had decreased to 0.24%.[15]

Ji Jiafu at the 2017 IGCC

In 2015, Ji was elected the Congress President of the International Gastric Cancer Association (IGCA), hence held the 12th International Gastric Cancer Congress (IGCC) in Beijing, China on April 20–23, 2017.[19] The congress was a great success: there were 3,816 participants from 48 countries across the world, and 1,245 abstracts had been submitted including 99 oral presentations and 540 posters.[10] Ji subsequently became the President of IGCA. During his term (2017-2019), Ji advocated for his modularized gastrectomy on a global level and shared his experiences with surgeons from different countries; he also helped with the founding of the European Sub-Association of IGCA.[20]

In 2017, Ji was awarded the Second Class State Scientific and Technological Progress Award for developing "key techniques in building an integrated system for the prevention and treatment of gastric cancer."[21]

In 2019, Ji completed the world's first phase III randomized controlled trial on laparoscopic D2 gastrectomy and published his results on JAMA.[15]

In 2022, Ji became a fellow of the CAMS.[3]