Zachary
Hanson
DO
MA
Education, Training, Board Certifications
- MA, Medical Sciences, Heritage University
- DO, Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences
- Residency, Internal Medicine, Loma Linda University Health
- Fellowship, Hematology and Medical Oncology, Loma Linda University Health
Clinical Expertise
- General medical oncology
- Benign and malignant hematology
Affiliations
Publications
Research and/or Clinical Interests
Dr. Zachary Hanson's research spans two areas: medical education and the role of micronutrients in hematopoiesis. As a medical student at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences, he studied telesimulation as a teaching tool for interprofessional education. This work was part of an NIH-funded randomized study of telepresence robots used to teach behavioral health skills in simulated clinical encounters. He presented the findings at SimOps 2018 and the Society for Simulation in Healthcare Annual Meeting in 2019, and co-authored the resulting paper in Telemedicine and e-Health. He has kept that interest in teaching throughout his training. At Loma Linda University School of Medicine he developed an end-of-life and goals-of-care OSCE and a hematology/oncology board review series for fellows, and he was named Senior Resident Teacher of the Year.
His early work on the CONDR and CONDR METS studies built large data, radiology, and pathology repositories for primary and metastatic brain cancers; these repositories were utilized to validate advanced MRI sequencing techniques, and track responses to chemotherapy and radiosurgery. His clinical and translational research during residency and fellowship looked at rare and under-recognized micronutrient deficiencies, especially zinc, copper, and selenium, and how they contribute to chronic anemia. He founded a Zinc focus group which has helped characterize zinc deficiency anemia across several groups of patients: those with chronic kidney disease, myelodysplastic syndrome, long-term proton pump inhibitor use, prior bowel resection or malnutrition, and older adults. The work also measured how hemoglobin responds to zinc replacement. He presented these findings at the European Hematology Association and American Society of Hematology annual meetings, and they were published in Blood and the Journal of Investigative Medicine. He also conducted a translational pilot study, funded by an institutional Cancer Center seed grant, that examined how burst-forming unit–erythroid (BFU-E) progenitor cells respond to zinc supplementation.
Clinically, Dr. Hanson has broad interests across general hematology and medical oncology. He is passionate about caring for patients with the full range of benign and malignant hematologic disorders and solid tumors. He is a passionate educator and served as Chief Fellow of the Loma Linda University Hematology/Oncology Fellowship. He is committed to bringing high-quality, evidence-based cancer and blood disorder care to his community and to being an accessible, compassionate partner to his patients and their families.