Alan S. Wayne, MD, is joining Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California as Director of the Children's Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases and Division Head of Hematology-Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation in the Department of Pediatrics, effective July 1. He will also be Professor of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and Associate Director for Pediatric Oncology at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center.
He is currently at the National Cancer Institute, where he is Clinical Director of the Pediatric Oncology Branch as well as head of the Branch's Hematologic Diseases Section.
John Sweetenham, MD, has been appointed Senior Director of Clinical Affairs and Executive Medical Director at Huntsman Cancer Institute, and Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematologic Oncology, at the University of Utah. He replaces Randall Burt, MD, who was interim medical director during the past year.
Eric Holland, MD, PhD, will join Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington to establish research programs on brain and other solid-tumor cancers. At Fred Hutchinson he will serve as Senior Vice President and Director of the Human Biology Division. At UW Medicine, he will be Professor of Neurological Surgery, hold the Chap and Eve Alvord and Elias Alvord Chair in Neuro-oncology, and direct the Nancy and Buster Alvord Brain Tumor Center.
He was most recently at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center as the Emily Tow Jackson Chair in Oncology and the founding Director of the Brain Tumor Center there.
Anirban Maitra, MBBS, has been named Co-Director and Scientific Director of the Sheikh Ahmed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The pancreatic cancer research center is funded by a $150 million grant from the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation, the largest ever received by MD Anderson, made in honor of the founder and late president of the United Arab Emirates and his sons (and which also funds the Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy and the Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Building for Personalized Cancer Care, presently under construction).
Maitra was most recently at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as Professor of Pathology and Oncology at the Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center and as an affiliate faculty member of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine. At MD Anderson he will also be Deputy Division Head for Academic Science in the Division of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Professor in the Departments of Pathology and Translational Molecular Pathology.
Lisa C. Richardson, MD, MPH, a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has become Division Director of the Division of Blood Disorders in the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. She was most recently Associate Director of Science in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
Dennis Hallahan, MD, the Elizabeth H. and James S. McDonnell III Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Radiation Oncology, and Girdhar Sharma, PhD, Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology, both of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Siteman Cancer Center, have been awarded a five-year, $2-million grant from the National Cancer Institute. They will serve as principal investigators on a project to study the radiosensitivity of normal stem cells in organs damaged during radiotherapy to understand the biological basis of toxicity.
John Byrd, MD, Director of the Hematologic Malignancy Program and a member of the Experimental Therapeutics Program at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, has received the Emil J. Freireich Award for clinical cancer research in recognition of his contributions to clinical research. Byrd received the award at the annual MD Anderson-sponsored Foundations of Clinical Cancer Research event in March.
Margaret Foti, PhD, CEO of the American Association for Cancer Research, received the Distinguished Partner in Hope Award at the Annual Colorectal Cancer Conference hosted by the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, to recognize her outstanding contributions to cancer research, prevention, and therapy. At the conference in March, she delivered the keynote lecture, "Progress Against Cancer in the New Era of Cancer Science and Medicine."
Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and John Theurer Cancer Center, part of Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, N.J., have established an oncology affiliation agreement to foster collaboration among clinicians and researchers from both institutions to allow greater patient access to clinical trials. The institutions, remaining independent, will jointly develop and enhance oncology research and teaching programs designed to impact and inform science, education, and patient care everywhere.
"As part of this integrated affiliation, researchers from Georgetown Lombardi and Hackensack will have access to each institution's equipment and resources, allowing for cost-effective maximization of state-of-the-art technologies," Louis M. Weiner, MD, Director of Georgetown Lombardi, said in a news release.
"Our current research activity will benefit from an expanded set of resources including access to Georgetown's exceptional staff and certain technologies, which will ultimately enable and empower cancer patients to gain greater access to treatment and care," Andrew L. Pecora, MD, FACP, CPE, Chief Innovations Officer and Professor and Vice President of Cancer Services at Hackensack UMC, added.
The two institutions are developing a multi-year plan to form an NCI-recognized consortium center for investigators from separate but collaborating scientific institutions to contribute to specific research agendas. The affiliation provides the initial framework, shared governance, and joint research collaborations that can lead to NCI consortium status.
The Breast Cancer Centers at both North Shore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center have been granted three-year, full accreditation by the American College of Surgeon's National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers. Standards include proficiency in: center leadership, clinical management, research, community outreach, professional education, and quality improvement. Both centers have also received the American College of Surgeons' Commission on Cancer's Outstanding Achievement Award to recognize programs that strive for excellence in providing quality cancer care.
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