Foundation Expands its Research Reviewing Body
to Meet Strategic Research Investment Objective
NEW
YORK, April 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Lung
Cancer Research Foundation (LCRF) has expanded its Scientific
Advisory Board (SAB) by five new members. Led by Katerina Politi, PhD, Associate Professor of
Pathology and Internal Medicine, Yale School
of Medicine, the Scientific Advisory Board's primary purpose
is to review, evaluate and select lung cancer research proposals
worthy of financial investment. In addition, members of the SAB
provide opinion and guidance on relevant lung cancer data.
"We are honored and delighted to have these exceptional lung
cancer experts join our SAB," commented Dr. Politi. "Advancing the
most promising science in lung cancer is of utmost importance to
the SAB and we are thrilled to have these leaders committed to
fostering lung cancer research join the Board. This expansion is an
important step as we work towards meeting our current strategic
objective of tripling LCRF's research investment by the end of 2024
and meeting our future strategic priorities."
LCRF's new members of its Scientific Advisory Board:
Shirish M. Gadgeel, MD
Chief of Division of
Hematology and Oncology,
Associate Director, Henry Ford
Cancer Institute/Henry Ford Health
Dr. Shirish Gadgeel is the Chief of Division of
Hematology/Oncology at Henry Ford Health. A medical oncologist by
training, his area of interest is lung cancer research in general
and drug development in lung cancer, in particular. He has
conducted and participated in many lung cancer-specific trials and
in phase I trials, including investigator-initiated trials based on
laboratory research. Dr. Gadgeel has also been a principal
investigator of a Southwest Oncology Group trial, S0528, S1507 and
NCI protocol 7389 and co-author on major phase III trials ALEX and
Keynote 189 which changed the standard of care. He has also engaged
in many epidemiologic studies in the field of lung cancer,
publishing on features of lung cancer in African Americans and in
young patients. He served as the co-leader of the Molecular
Therapeutics Program of the Core Cancer Center Grant of Karmanos
Cancer Institute before joining University of
Michigan and was the site PI for the NO1 grant awarded to
the California Cancer Consortium. Subsequently, he was co-leader of
the Thoracic Oncology Research Program and the Mary Lou Kennedy
Research Professor in Thoracic Oncology at the University of Michigan prior to joining
Henry Ford Cancer. Dr. Gadgeel's
clinical research experience spans 20 years. He is a member of the
steering Committee of the Lung Cancer Committee of Southwest
Oncology Group (SWOG). In addition, he is a member of the Editorial
Board of Clinical Lung Cancer and a reviewer for many journals
including New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical
Oncology, Lancet Oncology and Journal of Thoracic Oncology. He has
served as faculty for the annual meeting of the American Society of
Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and as a member of the Education Committee
of ASCO, as well as a member of the Career Development Committee of
the International Association of Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC). Dr.
Gadgeel received the NCI Cancer Clinical Investigator Team
Leadership Award in 2012.
Aaron Hata, MD,
PhD
Assistant Professor of
Medicine
Massachusetts
General Hospital, Harvard Medical
School
Dr. Aaron Hata is an Assistant
Physician in Hematology-Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant
Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical
School. He is Principal Investigator of a translational and
basic research laboratory in the MGH Krantz Family Center for
Cancer Research. Dr. Hata's research focuses on understanding
mechanisms of drug sensitivity and resistance to targeted therapies
for lung cancer. His group has discovered mechanisms of clinical
acquired drug resistance in EGFR, ALK, ROS1, RET and KRAS-driven
lung cancers, and he has played an instrumental role in the
development of novel therapeutic approaches for overcoming drug
resistance. His research has also yielded important insights into
how tumor cells persist and evolve during therapy. Dr. Hata
received his MD and Ph.D. degrees from Vanderbilt University and completed an Internal
Medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Medical
Oncology fellowship at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and
Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr.
Hata is also an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of
Harvard and MIT, an Investigator in the Ludwig Center of
Harvard, and a member of the Dana
Farber Harvard Cancer Center Lung Cancer SPORE. In 2023, he was
elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Dr.
Hata is also a 2012 grant recipient of LCRF's legacy organization,
United Against Lung Cancer (UALC).
David MacPherson,
PhD
Professor, Human Biology Division
Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Center
Dr. David MacPherson's lab
applies genomic approaches and in vivo models to understand the
molecular underpinnings of small cell lung cancer (SCLC). His lab
studies patient tumor samples and employs genetically engineered
mouse (GEM) models as well as patient-derived xenograft (PDX)
models in their interrogation of genes that drive SCLC initiation
and progression. They also employ GEM and PDX models in efforts to
understand and improve responses to novel and to standard
therapies, with an eye towards clinical translation. Dr. MacPherson
co-leads the Fred Hutch Cancer Center Lung Program, and he co-leads
a Lung Cancer NIH SPORE project focused on inhibition of the LSD1
demethylase in SCLC and translation of this therapeutic approach to
the clinic. He is a member of the SWOG Lung Committee and member of
the Gene Regulation in Cancer NIH Study Section. Dr. MacPherson is
also an Affiliate Associate Professor in the Department of Genome
Sciences at the University of
Washington. He is committed to training and teaches an
introductory graduate course, MCB539, The Biology of Neoplasia.
Taofeek Owonikoko, MD, PhD
Marlene and
Stewart Greenebaum Professor in Oncology and Executive
Director
University of
Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center
Taofeek K. Owonikoko, MD, PhD, is the Marlene and Stewart
Greenebaum Professor in Oncology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the
Executive Director of the University of
Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer
Center at the University of Maryland
Medical Center. He also holds the role of Senior Associate Dean of
Cancer Programs at the School of Medicine and the Associate Vice
President of Cancer Programs at the University
of Maryland, Baltimore. A translational physician-scientist,
board-certified in Medical Oncology, Hematology, and Internal
Medicine, he has a clinical focus on the management of patients
with lung cancer. His research interests span the spectrum of
preclinical experimental therapeutics, biomarker discovery, and
translation of promising laboratory findings into lung cancer
clinical trials.
He is currently an elected member of the Board of the American
Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the Treasurer-Elect of
ASCO. He serves as an Editorial Board Member for several highly
regarded academic journals including Cancer, Journal of Thoracic
Disease, and Translational Lung Cancer Research. Dr. Owonikoko is a
member of the American College of Physicians, American Society for
Hematology, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, and the
International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. Lastly, he
has been an NIH Study Section Member for the past 11 years and is a
chartered member for the NIH Clinical Oncology Study section.
Dr. Owonikoko has authored/co-authored more than 250
peer-reviewed original manuscripts including reports of original
research in leading journals such as the New England Journal of
Medicine, Lancet, Cell, Science, Nature, JCO, Lancet Oncology,
Cancer Discovery, and Cancer Cell. His work has been broadly cited
with more than 50,000 citations and an h-index of 85. He has
received peer-reviewed extramural grant funding in support of his
research from the US National Institutes of Health, Department of
Defense, private foundations, and pharmaceutical partners.
Rocio Sotillo,
PhD
Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Heidelberg
University
Head of the Division of Molecular Thoracic
Oncology
German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ
Dr. Rocio Sotillo, a Pharmacist
from the University San Pablo-CEU in Madrid, made significant contributions to
cancer research during her Thesis at the Spanish National Cancer
Center (CNIO) and her postdoc at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer
Center. Her work illuminated the roles of cyclin dependent kinases
and mitotic checkpoints in tumor development.
In 2010, she established her lab at the EMBL-Mouse Biology Unit
in Italy, funded by the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and the European Research Council
(ERC). In 2015, she became a full Professor at the German Cancer
Research Center, focusing on understanding the mechanisms that
drive lung and breast cancer development, progression, and therapy
response. Her recent achievements include developing unique mouse
models to induce different oncogenes in somatic lung epithelial
cells in vivo using CRISPR/Cas9 that will serve as preclinical
models to study the most efficient combinational therapies in lung
cancer. Dr. Sotillo is a 2009 grant recipient from LCRF's legacy
organization, United Against Lung Cancer (UALC.)
About the Lung Cancer Research Foundation
(LCRF)
The Lung Cancer Research Foundation® (LCRF) is the leading
nonprofit organization focused on funding innovative, high-reward
research with the potential to extend survival and improve quality
of life for people with lung cancer. LCRF's mission is to improve
lung cancer outcomes by funding research for the prevention,
diagnosis, treatment, and cure of lung cancer. To date, LCRF has
funded 419 research grants, totaling nearly $44 million, the highest amount provided by a
nonprofit organization dedicated to funding lung cancer research.
For more information about the LCRF grant program and funding
opportunities, visit lcrf.org/research.
Contact:
Sheila
Sullivan
Sr. Director, Marketing & Communications, LCRF
ssullivan@lcrf.org
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SOURCE Lung Cancer Research Foundation