Dr. Scott Kopetz received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine after an undergraduate degree in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He obtained his residency training in Internal Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, medical oncology fellowship at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and Ph.D. at M.D. Anderson in Cancer Biology.

Dr. Kopetz is currently Deputy Chair of the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology and Program Leader of the GI Program of the Cancer Center Support Grant at UTMDACC. Dr. Kopetz is well versed in multidisciplinary care of and translational research for GI cancer patients. His laboratory is funded by multiple NIH-funded grants. Kopetz is a leader of the GI Cancer Center Support Grant at MD Anderson and the Colorectal Cancer Moonshot, a multi-disciplinary effort to improve the survival of this disease beyond incremental advances. Kopetz has developed a translational and clinical trial program in BRAF-mutated colorectal cancer, which has resulted in addition of combination therapy with a BRAF inhibitor to the current treatment guidelines. He also co-lead the clinical trial resulting in the FDA-approval of nivolumab and ipilimumab for mismatch repair deficient tumors. He also is an innovator in the development and implementation of circulating tumor DNA into clinical management, including interrogation of mechanisms of resistance, evaluation of minimal residual disease, and integration into clinical trial designs.

“The development of predictive biomarkers is a widely accepted as an important milestone in the move towards personalized medicine. Kopetz spoken about taxonomy-based biomarker model that, in contrast with a “target-based” biomarker model that prevails today, classifies colorectal tumors based on their intrinsic biology, integrating multiple characteristics of tumors, including gene mutations, amplification, methylation, RNA and protein expressions”.

 Selected Publications

Dr. Vivek Subbiah is a leader and world renowned expert in Precision Oncology, a Physician Investigator in the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics at MD Anderson, which is the largest oncology drug development unit in the world. He is primarily involved in translational cancer research and the design and conduct of early-phase biomarker-driven clinical trials, with a specialist interest in anti-body drug conjugates, radio-pharmaceuticals, immunoconjugates and basket trials. Dr. Subbiah has skillfully led the MD Anderson effort on the international Vemurafenib Basket Trial in non-melanoma BRAF V600-mutated cancers, which pioneered a novel histology-independent clinical trial design. Furthermore, his novel investigator-initiated trials have also laid the foundation for therapeutic breakthroughs for additional rare cancers.

Dr. Subbiah is a major advocate for precision oncology. His national leadership roles continue to expand as the National PI for the BRAF non-V600 alteration arm of the NCI-MATCH Precision Medicine Clinical Trial.

“Shares his perspective on the results from the ADAURA trial, a “potentially paradigm-shifting phase 3 study.” The FDA first approved osimertinib for the treatment of patients with metastatic EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in 2015, and the ADAURA trial data may support adjuvanted therapy with osimertinib. “Lessons from the study can be useful for us in the world of precision medicine,” Subbiah said.”

 Selected Publications

He received his medical degree summa cum laude from Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary. He completed an internal medicine residency program at St.Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital/Columbia University in New York City followed by a hematology/oncology fellowship program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massaschuestts.

While Dr. Halmos, also obtained an MS degree in Clinical Sciences from Harvard Medical School. Since completion of his fellowship, he has been a faculty member at Harvard, Case Western Reserve University and most recently an Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. There he served as Director of Thoracic Oncology from 2009-2014 and was also Chair of the Cancer IRB.

Dr. Halmos also oversees the thoracic clinical trials program of novel clinical studies at the Montefiore Albert Einstein Cancer Center and is spearheading the effort to develop a molecular testing paradigm for cancer patients managed within the Montefiore to facilitate a personalized cancer medicine approach throughout the health system.

He is the recipient of multiple awards from prestigious organizations such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Association for Cancer Research and the American Cancer Society, where he also serves as a permanent review board member.

“We changed the landscape and we changed kind of the notion of how we think about metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. We used to call our treatments palliative. That’s not the right word any longer because our treatments are now so successful for some of our patients that actually the terminology, potentially curative treatment, has now come up as the realistic challenge.”

 

 Selected Publications

Dr. Gadgeel served as director of the Thoracic Oncology Program and co-leader of Molecular Therapeutics Program at Karmanos Cancer Institute.Prior to Henry Ford, Dr. Gadgeel was a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and the Mary Lou Kennedy Research Professor in Thoracic Oncology at the University of Michigan/Michigan Medicine. He did his MBBS medical degree from the University of Bombay, India, completed an internship at LaGuardia Hospital (now Long Island Jewish Forest Hills), and Hematology/Oncology residency and Bone Marrow Transplantation Fellowship at Wayne State University.

Dr. Gadgeel enhances our academic mission through clinical trials and research, while promoting the growth and expansion of clinical services locally, regionally, and nationally — further positioning Henry Ford Cancer Institute as a destination and referral center for cancer care. He is the principal investigator on numerous clinical trials, and has published extensively in peer-reviewed literature. He was awarded by the National Cancer Institute the Cancer Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award in 2012.

“Liquid biopsy identified a similar proportion of patients with ALK mutations to that typically seen with traditional biopsy, and the results with alectinib compared well with those seen in a pivotal study of this treatment. It is encouraging to see that increasing numbers of patients with lung cancer can benefit from liquid biopsy to identify their disease mutation instead of tissue samples. At present the technology is quite expensive but as it becomes more widely used, the cost is likely to come down so that testing becomes more affordable and available in daily practice.”Blood Test Can Replace Invasive Biopsy for More Patients with Lung Cancer. ESMO 2019.

 Selected Publications

Prof O’Byrne received his qualifications Doctorate in Medicine, University College, Dublin, 1998, Specialist training in Medical Oncology, UK, 1997, Medical Board Equivalent Exams, Member Royal College Physicians Ireland, 1990, Diploma in Child Health, National University of Ireland (NUI), 1989,Bachelor of Medicine, MB, BCh, BAO, University College Dublin/NUI 1984.

Prof O’Byrne, a clinical scientist translating science into patient care, has conducted translational ‘‘bench-to-bedside-and back-’again’ research over the past 25 years with a focus on solid epithelial tumours, in particular in thoracic malignancies. Prof O’Byrne has been involved in the design of and running phase I, II and III clinical trials encouraging the incorporation of biomarker studies, both prognostic and predictive. In 2013, Prof O’Byrne moved to Brisbane to take up a role as a member of the Australian Prostate Cancer Research Group establishing close links Professors Colleen Nelson and Judith Clements, and forging links with the prostate group in Vancouver, Canada.

“Current research interests include exploring the potential role of DNA stability in regulation of the androgen receptor and as a target for therapy for prostate cancer patients. He also plays a lead role in the clinical trials unit, investigating treatments such as OGX-011, a clusterin antisense therapy, in patient volunteers with prostate cancer.” 

 Selected Publications

Dr. Sewanti Limaye is a career Precision Oncologist and serves as the Director of Precision Oncology and Director of Clinical and Translational Research at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and Medical Research Center in Mumbai, India. Before moving to India, she served as a faculty at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and at Columbia University Medical Center/New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York, USA. She is the first amongst the Indian medical oncologists to set up a Precision Oncology Clinic in India.

Dr. Limaye received her medical degree with honors from Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at New York University. Later, she completed her fellowship in Hematology and Medical Oncology from Albert Einstein University, New York. She obtained Masters in Patient Oriented Research (Cancer Genomics and Biostatistics) from Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, NY.

Dr. Limaye was awarded numerous awards including the John-Flynn Young Investigator Award for Excellence in Clinical Research; the Rose and Jack Horowitz Award for Excellence in Patient Care; Medical Oncology Research Excellence Award-ASCO 2008 for Excellence in Clinical Research. She was nominated to serve as the National Chair of the Sub-protocol Arm B of the landmark NCI-MATCH Trial. Dr. Limaye is a results-oriented oncologist and a lifetime cancer researcher and clinician investigator. She is committed to novel drug development and to delivering evidence-based and cutting-edge treatment for cancer patients.

“There is no other way of practicing oncology other than Precision Oncology. Besides, we are at the crossroads of understanding the tumor at Molecular-level and efficiently identifying the vulnerabilities through genome sequencing. These vulnerabilities will allow us to treat and cure cancer using a novel evidence-based effective combination of therapies.”

Selected Publications

Padmaja Ganapathy holds a PhD in Cancer Biology and an MBA in finance. She has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry and has worked at Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and Covance in various capacities. She is the founder/director of Artists4Peace, a non-profit consortium of artists publishing curated works of art. She is also the author of a blog in her spare time.

Dr. Jochen Lorch received his medical degree from Regensbutg University in Germany and a Master’s degree in Clinical Investigation from Northwestern University. He completed his residency at the University of Pennsylvania Health System and finished a fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at Northwestern University. He is a world leader in head and neck cancers, salivary gland cancers and advanced thyroid cancers. He heads the Thyroid Cancer Center and maintains an active clinical and translational research program at Dana Farber Cancer Insitiute.

Promising advances in thyroid cancer treatment – “I think there will be more and more personalized cancer treatment approaches as we learn more about genetics and driver mutations. We see that happening now with BRAF-positive thyroid cancer with the BRAF inhibition strategies”. 

 Selected Publications

Professor Paul Hofman received his qualifications at MD Thesis (University of Nice) : 1989, HDR (University of Nice) : 1992, PhD Thesis (University of Montpellier, France) in Cell biology : 1993. Post doctoral positions: Department of Pathology, Brigham and Womens’ Hospital, Boston, Harvard Medical School: 1993-1996; Institut Max Planck, Tubingen 1996-1997.

His key functioning role at the hospital is as the Head of the Laboratory of Clinical and Experimental Pathology (LPCE), Côte d’Azur University, Head of the Molecular Biology Department, Nice Hospital, Director of the Nice Hospital Biobank , Director of the FHU OncoAge consortium, Director of the MSc Biobanks and Complex Data Management at the University Côte d’Azur .

Currently in lead roles as the Head of the Inserm team 4 [“Lung Cancer and Metastases”] at the IRCAN, Comprehensive Cancer Center Antoine Lacassagne, Nice, Member of the Academy of Medicine (Brussels, Belgium) (since 2019), Co-chair of the Lung Pathology Working Group at the European Society of Pathology (since 2021), Elected member of the Lung Committee of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) (since 2021).

“As laboratories increasingly look to bring advanced molecular testing in-house, the results of a new retrospective clinical research study, led by Dr. Paul Hofman, shows that tumor mutation burden (TMB) assessments using the Oncomine Tumor Mutation Load Assay provides comparable results and predictive value to a commonly ordered, commercial next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel that is available only as an outsourced test. TMB has emerged as a focus of clinical trials aiming to harness genomic data to more effectively identify patients who may benefit from immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.” 

Selected Publications

Dr. Razelle Kurzrock is a world-renowned leader in Precision Medicine and a physician-scientist leading the development of novel therapeutics in the field of oncology. She is known for developing and leading one of the unique Phase 1 clinical trial programs at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center where the central theme of the program was personalized medicine strategy, embodied in a protocol called PREDICT (Profile-Related Evidence Determining Individualized Cancer Therapy).She is one of the pioneer trialists in WINTHER trial focusing on precision medicine as the upcoming modality of treatment. “Precision medicine focuses on DNA abnormalities, but not all tumors have tractable genomic alterations. The WINTHER trial (NCT01856296) navigated patients to therapy on the basis of fresh biopsy-derived DNA sequencing (arm A; 236 gene panel) or RNA expression (arm B; comparing tumor to normal). The study showed that genomic and transcriptomic profiling are both useful for improving therapy recommendations and patient outcome and expands personalized cancer treatment”

At Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health, Dr. Kurzrock’s charge is broad, including not just growing and innovating the Center’s clinical trials program, but also heading its newly established Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy. As a physician-scientist, she brings extraordinary expertise and experience in clinical research, business operations, regulatory operations, financial and budget planning, and administrative oversight, in addition to her world-recognized work in translational science and precision.

“Dr. Kurzrock is a global leader in personalized medicine, bringing the first transcriptomic study to the clinic in an international setting spanning five countries (WINTHER), as well as the first study of individually customized combination therapy (IPREDICT) (both Nature Medicine, April 2019).” 

 Selected Publications

Dr. Massimo Cristofanilli is Professor of Medicine and Associate Director of Translational Research and Precision Medicine at the Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Northwestern University in Chicago. He is President of the International Society of Liquid Biopsy (ISLB) and the Inflammatory Breast cancer International Consortium (IBC-IC). He graduated from the University La Sapienza in Italy, and then moved to the US his Internal Medicine at the Cabrini Medical Center and his fellowship training at the University of Texas/MD Anderson Cancer Center. He joined the faculty at the same Institution making seminal contribution to breast cancer research. Subsequently moving to Fox Chase Cancer Center serving as Chairman of Medical Oncology.

Dr. Cristofanilli is an expert in the research and management of hormone-receptor positive metastatic breast cancer and IBC. He is a pioneer in liquid biopsy including CTCs and ctDNA research and clinical applications. Dr. Cristofanilli is known for contributions in several area of clinical and translational research including: the detection of and molecular characterization of micrometastatic disease; the research and treatment of inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), the most aggressive and deadly form of breast cancer and, drug development, particularly in HR+ MBC with focus on molecularly targeted therapies, i.e., gefitinib, lapatinib and palbociclib.

“Precision Medicine is gaining momentum as the future gold standard healthcare strategy as it enables treatment optimization and consequently a potential improvement for quality of life and survival. This paradigm shift was possible thanks to new high-throughput genomics technologies, which provide prognostic and predictive information on tumor biology and potential treatment options, as standard pathological procedures are unable to capture both spatial and temporal tumor heterogeneity.” 

Selected Publications

Dr. Anil K. Sood holds a joint appointment in Cancer Biology and is co-director of the Center for RNA Interference and Non-Coding RNA at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is also Director of the multi-disciplinary Blanton-Davis Ovarian Cancer Research Program and co-leads the Ovarian Cancer Moonshot Program.

Dr. Sood received his medical degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. A major and consistent theme of his scientific research has been on understanding human cancer biology and converting lab discoveries into novel therapeutics. His research group has made several seminal research contributions in the fields of tumor micro environment, nano medicine,and neuroendocrine effects on cancer biology. Dr. Sood has received recognition for his research accomplishments including the Hunter Award, the Margaret Greenfield/Carmel Cohen Excellence in Ovarian Cancer Research Prize, and the GCF/Claudia Cohen Research Foundation Prize for Outstanding Gynecologic Cancer Researcher.

“Next-generation sequencing and advances in ‘‘omics technology have rapidly increased our understanding of the molecular landscape of epithelial ovarian cancers. Areas covered: Once characterized only by histologic appearance and clinical behavior, we now understand many of the molecular phenotypes that underlie the different ovarian cancer subtypes. Genomic profiling offers potentially ‘”‘actionable’ opportunities for development of targeted therapies and a more individualized approach”.

 Selected Publications

Dr. Patrick Y Wen, MD is Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Center for Neuro-Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA. He graduated from the Medical College of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, University of London, and completed his Internal Medicine training at University of London postgraduate hospitals, and Neurology residency through the Harvard-Longwood Neurology Training Program. Dr Wen serves as Co-PI of the National Cancer Institute supported Adult Brain Tumor Consortium, and member of the Steering Committee of the Response Assessment in Neuro-Oncology (RANO) Working Group. His research focuses on novel treatments of brain tumors, especially targeted molecular agents. Dr Wen has authored or co-authored hundreds of peer-reviewed articles that have been published in journals such as Neurology, Neuro-Oncology, Current Opinion in Neurology, and Journal of Clinical Oncology. He serves as President of the Society For Neuro-Oncology and SNO Executive Editor of Neuro-Oncology.

“GDC-0084, an investigational PI3K inhibitor, may delay the progression of disease in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma and unmethylated MGMT promotor status, based on results of a phase IIa study, Kazia Therapeutics reported. There is an urgent need for new therapies in glioblastoma. GDC-0084 has the potential to be an important new addition to the treatment of this very challenging disease.“ 

 Selected Publications

Dr. Richard Lee after completing a bachelor’s and a master’s degree at Harvard, Dr. Lee then completed his medical school (M.D.) and graduate school (Ph.D.) training at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in the Bronx, New York. He came to MGH for internal medicine residency training and then completed medical oncology fellowship training through the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute / MGH joint program. During that time, he performed basic science research at the Whitehead Institute of MIT. He is board certified in medical oncology. Clinical interests include prostate cancer, bladder cancer, testicular, penile and genitourinary cancers, renal cancer, and translational research. Since joining the staff at MGH, Dr. Lee has been engaged in translational studies of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from peripheral blood, using a new technology developed at MGH. The hope is that this “CTC-Chip” may have clinical usefulness for cancer patients. In addition to seeing patients, Dr. Lee is also interested in clinical trials of new drugs to treat genitourinary cancers.
Dr. Lee discusses choosing among the antidrogens available in the treatment of patients with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

“When choosing among apalutamide (Erleada), enzalutamide (Xtandi), and darolutamide, the differing hazard ratios for benefit will be considered, as well as the differing safety profiles of the drugs in CRPC.” 

 Selected Publications

Dr. Swaminathan P. Iyer, is a Professor of Medicine in the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma at University of Texas, MD Anderson. After completing medical training at Bangalore Medical College in India, Dr. Iyer completed his residency in internal medicine at Wayne State University. He completed his fellowship in hematology and oncology at the University of Miami. He is a physician scientist with extensive expertise in clinical studies particularly in Hematological Malignancies such as leukemia and lymphoma, in addition to laboratory interests in developing small molecules, aptamers and drug delivery technologies such as nanoparticles into the clinic. He has led many trials including first-in-man studies, exploration of different doses and schedules of administration and investigational agent combinations, and the examination of biomarkers for patient selection. He was part of pivotal studies that led to the FDA approval of the new anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody Ofatumumab or Arzerra in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. He leads the T cell lymphoma program at MD Anderson. His laboratory interests are in developing aptamers against targets in hematological malignancies.

 Selected Publications