Rate My Professor Patrick Tan

Patrick Tan, MD, PhD, serves as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at Duke University. He earned a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Harvard University and an MD/PhD from Stanford University School of Medicine. Tan is an internationally recognized cancer geneticist and clinician-scientist whose work focuses on the genomics of cancers prevalent in Asia. He has been a faculty member of Duke-NUS Medical School’s Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Signature Research Program since 2006.

Tan currently holds the position of Senior Vice-Dean for Research at Duke-NUS Medical School, a role he assumed in July 2023. He also serves as Executive Director of Precision Health Research Singapore (PRECISE), coordinating Singapore’s National Precision Medicine program, and as Senior Scientific Advisor for Group Research at SingHealth. In April 2025, he was appointed the next Dean of Duke-NUS Medical School, effective January 1, 2026. Over his career, Tan has received multiple national and international awards, including the American Association for Cancer Research Team Science Award, the first time an Asian team received the honor. He is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians.