Glenn Mills, MD, has been named Director of the Feist Weiller Cancer Center at LSU Health Shreveport in Louisiana. He has been on staff there since 1986, and has been Interim Director of the cancer center since the retirement of founding Director Jonathan Glass, MD, last year. Mills is also Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Medicine, Chief of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Director of Clinical Research, and Program Director of the Hematology and Medical Oncology Fellowship Program at LSU Health Shreveport.
Yusuke Nakamura, MD, PhD, Secretary General of the Japanese Government's Office of Medical Innovation, will join the faculty at the University of Chicago in April. As Professor of Medicine, he will focus on pharmacogenomics. He is also Professor of Molecular Medicine at Tokyo University's Human Genome Center.
Mitchell C. Posner, MD, the Thomas D. Jones Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Section of General Surgery and Surgical Oncology at the University of Chicago, has been made Medical Director of Clinical Cancer Programs. He will lead the university's efforts to develop a strategic plan for cancer services with the goals of increasing clinical volume and raising the cancer program's profile.
Three University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center members have been honored with named professorships-the highest academic honor accorded by a university: Jerrold Turner, MD, PhD, is the Sara and Harold Lincoln Thompson Professor of Pathology. Habibul Ahsan, MBBS, MMedSc, is the Louis Block Professor of Health Studies, Human Genetics, and Medicine, as well as Director of the Center for Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention and Associate Director for Population Research. David H. Song, MD, MBA, is the Cynthia Chow Professor of Surgery, as well as Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery, Chief of the Section of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and Director of the Residency Training Program.
Ann Partridge, MD, MPH, has been named Director of the Adult Survivorship Program and the Lance Armstrong Foundation Clinic at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She has been Clinical Director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women's Cancers Breast Oncology Program at Dana-Farber since 2008, and founded and will continue to serve as Director of Dana-Farber's Program for Young Women with Breast Cancer. And, she has been the Chair of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Breast Cancer in Young Women since 2010.
Roswell Park Cancer Institute has announced the following recognitions for these faculty members:
* Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, has been awarded the 17th D'Youville College Achievement in Health Care Award, which recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to the health care profession in Western New York. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Director of the Center for Immunotherapy at RPCI and Professor of Gynecology & Obstetrics in the University at Buffalo's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
* John R. Subjeck, PhD, will receive the J. Eugene Robinson Award from the Society for Thermal Medicine for his work in hyperthermia research and his leadership of the society. He is a Member of the Department of Cell Stress Biology at Roswell Park and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biophysics and Biochemistry at the University at Buffalo.
* Nestor Rigual, MD, and Sandra Gollnick, PhD, have been elected to the Board of Directors of the PanAmerican Photodynamic Association, a new professional association to facilitate photodynamic therapy education and treatment. Rigual is Professor of Oncology, Medical Director of the Photodynamic Therapy Center, and Physician Leader for the Head & Neck Center at RPCI and Professor of Clinical Otolaryngology at the University at Buffalo. Gollnick is a Member of RPCI's Department of Cell Stress Biology and Immunology.
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has named a major campus building after John Mendelsohn, MD, to honor the cancer center's most recent past president. Mendelsohn led the center (the nation's largest) from 1996 to 2011. He now serves as the center's co-director of the Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nayan Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy, where he continues to lead clinical and translational research. He is also the L.E. and Virginia Simmons senior fellow in health and technology policy at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
"One of my greatest joys as president of this institution has been getting to know and work with the unsurpassed faculty, staff and volunteers who contribute to the MD Anderson mission. To be honored in this way is indeed humbling and gratifying," Mendelsohn said in a statement.
Added MD Anderson President Ronald DePinho, MD: "John Mendelsohn is one of the preeminent leaders in modern cancer medicine[horizontal ellipsis].It is fitting that the John Mendelsohn Faculty Center will bear his name in honor of the countless contributions he has made not only to our institution but also to the field of oncology and, ultimately, to cancer patients and their families everywhere."
Moffitt Cancer Center, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, and Florida Hospital have announced the creation of the Personalized Medicine Partnership of Florida (PMP Florida) to conduct collaborative research to develop new treatments for cancer, as well as for other metabolic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. One of the stated objectives of the partnership is to attract industry clients, including pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
"PMP Florida is a multi-institutional model for combining research and clinical care expertise to advance personalized medical care," said John C. Reed, MD, PhD, CEO of Sanford-Burnham. "The technology platforms, collections of patient samples, and medical information sharing create a powerful combination for improving clinical outcomes and reducing health care costs."
The American Brain Tumor Association (ABTA) has named Aubrey Bonhivert, a second-year medical student at Ohio State University, the recipient of the 2011 Lucien Rubenstein Award for her research on the correlation between acid sphingomyelinase and the migration and invasion of glioma cells. She was selected as the outstanding student from a group of 15 medical students chosen to spend 10 weeks pursuing research in an ABTA research lab. Her work was under the direction of her mentor, Balveen Kaur, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at Ohio State and Chief of Dardinger Laboratories for Neuro-Onoclogy and NeuroSciences.
The Cancer Research Foundation has awarded six Young Investigator Awards, given to young scientists during the first two years of their initial faculty appointment who are pursuing independent research, to enable them to develop the preliminary data necessary to successfully compete for major research grants. The following individuals each received a $75,000 one-year research grant:
* Jonas de Sousa, MD, Instructor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center, for the proposal: "Measuring Financial Burden of Curable Head and Neck Cancer"
* Brandon Pierce, PhD, Assistant Professor of Health Studies at the University of Chicago, for the proposal: "Improving GWAS-based Discovery for Early-onset Breast Cancer"
* Navin Pinto, MD, Instructor of Pediatrics at Comer Children's Hospital at the University of Chicago, for: "Population-specific Genetic Variants Important in Susceptibility to Cyclophosphamide in Pediatric Patients"
* Steffen Sammet, MD, PhD, MS, DABR, Assistant Professor of Radiology at the University of Chicago Medical Center, for "High Intensity Focused Ultrasound Ablation of Prostate Tissue in vivo with Magnetic Resonance Imaging Guidance"
* Russell Szmulewitz, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center, for "Does glucocorticoid receptor (GR) signaling compensate for androgen receptor (AR) function in castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC)?"
* Xiaoyang Wu, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Ben May Department for Cancer Research at the University of Chicago, for his proposal: "Coordinated Cytoskeletal Dynamics in Skin Stem Cells and Skin Cancer"
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