Cytogeneticist, reconstructive surgeon join UMMC faculty

The Medical Center is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff:

Thomas R. Dennis, Ph.D.

Dennis

Dr. Thomas R. Dennis, an assistant professor of pathology and associate director of cytogenetics in the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, Richmond, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of pathology.

After receiving his B.S. in biology/chemistry from Western Michigan University in 1973, Dennis embarked on a career in cytogenetics that included positions at such leading institutions as Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio; UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California; the University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno; and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dennis was a chromosome microdissection specialist at the University of Nevada when he earned his Ph.D. there in cell and molecular biology/cytogenetics in 1999. While completing an American Board of Medical Genetics fellowship in clinical cytogenetics at the National Institutes of Health, Washington, D.C., and a medical genetics residency at Georgetown University Medical Center in 2002, Dennis served as a research fellow in the Cancer Genetics Branch of the NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, and was a special volunteer there from 2004-06 while also serving as an assistant professor of pediatrics, Division of Genetics, and associate director of the Clinical Cytogenetics Laboratory at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

A cytogeneticist at the Translational Genomics Research Institute, Genetic Basis of Human Disease Division, Phoenix, Arizona, from 2006-08, Dennis served as director of cytogenetics at Shodair Children's Hospital, Helena, Montana, from 2008-10. In 2010, he became a clinical cytogeneticist at Genzyme Genetics, Temple Terrace, Florida, and in 2011, he joined the Molecular Pathology Laboratory Network, Maryville, Tennessee, as director of cytogenetics. He has been at Virginia Commonwealth since 2013.

The author or coauthor of 16 articles in peer-reviewed publications and 27 abstracts, Dennis has presented two invited workshops in Rome, Italy. He is an active member of the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics, the American Cytogenetics Conference and the Society for Melanoma Research.

Benjamin Clayton McIntyre, M.D.

McIntyre

Dr. Benjamin Clayton McIntyre, a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an associate professor of surgery.

After receiving his B.S. in biology magna cum laude from Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1999, McIntyre earned his M.D. at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, in 2003. His general surgery training was completed at the University of Cincinnati in 2008, and he served as the Robert H. Bower administrative chief resident there from 2007-08. After leaving Cincinnati, he went on to complete a residency in plastic and maxillofacial surgery at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville from 2008-10. Following his training in Virginia, he then moved to Wellington, New Zealand, to complete a fellowship in reconstructive microsurgery with a special focus on cancer reconstruction.

McIntyre joined the University of South Carolina School of Medicine faculty in 2011 as an assistant professor of surgery and served as a staff surgeon at Providence Hospital, Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital, Palmetto Baptist Hospitals and Palmetto Baptist Parkridge Hospitals in Columbia and at Lexington Medical Center in Lexington, South Carolina.

A diplomat of the American College of Surgeons and the Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery, McIntyre is an active member of several professional organizations, including the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the Society of Surgical Oncology. He serves as associate editor of the journal Microsurgery and is the author or coauthor of 11 abstracts, articles in peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

He has given 22 presentations and invited lectures nationally and internationally, and his research interests include outcomes in microsurgery and outcomes/survival in head and neck sarcomas. His clinical practice focuses on all aspects of plastic surgery, but special emphasis is placed on breast reconstruction, breast surgery, body contouring, oculoplastics and facial nerve disorders.