​Faculty Biographies

​Fawzi F. Abu Rous, MD
Medical Oncologist, Henry Ford Health Detroit, MI

​Asrar AlAhmadi, MBBS, MAS-CR Assistant Professor, Division of Medical Oncology Department of
Internal Medicine, James Cancer Center
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio

​David A. Barbie, MD
Thoracic Medical Oncologist, Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology,
Dana-Farber
Associate Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School Associate Director Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science
Boston, MA

​Trever G. Bivona, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine (joint with Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology), Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California
San Francisco
Senior Investigator, Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub San
Francisco, CA

​Hossein Borghaei, DO, MS
Chief of Thoracic Medical Oncology Professor, Department of Oncology/Hematology
Co-Leader, Molecular Therapeutics Program The Gloria and Edmund M. Dunn Chair in Thoracic Malignancies Fox Chase Cancer Center
Philadelphia, PA

​Penelope Bradbury, MB, BCh, FRACP, MD
Active staff medical oncologist, Division of Medical Oncology and Hematology, Department of Medicine, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto,
Ontario, CA 

​Jeremy Brownstein, MD
Assistant Professor, Radiation Oncology Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Ohio State University
Columbus, OH

​David Paul Carbone, MD, PhD
Professor Barbara J. Bonner
Chair in Lung Cancer Research
Director, James Thoracic Center
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH

​Jamie E. Chaft, MD
Thoracic Oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
New York, NY

​Haiying Cheng, MD
Associate Professor, Department of Oncology (Medical Oncology)
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine (Oncology & Hematology) Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center
Bronx, NY

​Anne Chiang, MD, PhD, FASCO
Associate Professor of Medicine Associate Yale Cancer Center
Director, Clinical Initiatives, Yale School of Medicine
New Haven, CT 

Quincy Chu, MD, FRCP(C)
Associate Professor, Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Oncology, University of Alberta Medical Oncologist, Cross Cancer Institute Edmonton, Alberta

​Ben Creelan, MD
Thoracic Oncologist H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute Tampa, FL

​Amy Cummings, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Santa Monica, CA

Parth Anil Desai, MD, MBBS
Assistant Professor,  Department of Medical Oncology/Hematology, 
Temple University Health System, Fox Chase Cancer Center
Philadelphia, PA

Maximilian Diehn, MD, PhD
Jack, Lulu and Sam Willson
Professor in Cancer Biology, Division Chief, Radiation and Cancer Biology Division,  Vice Chair of Research Department of Radiation Oncology Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford University
Stanford, CA

​Konstantin H. Dragnev, MD
Professor of Medicine Irene Heinz Given Professor in Pharmacology
Norris Cotton Cancer Center Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Dartmouth Giesel School of Medicine
Lebanon, NH

Martin J. Edelman, MD
Professor and Chair, Department of Hematology/Oncology, Associate Director of the Cancer Center for Clinical Research Integration, G. Morris Dorrance, Chair in Medical Oncology Fox Chase Cancer Center
Philadelphia, PA

​Wafik El-Deiry, MD, PhD, FACP
Mencoff Family University Professor of Medical Science, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Director of the Cancer Center
Director of the Joint Program in Cancer Biology Brown University
Associate Dean for Oncologic Sciences Warren Alpert Medical School Providence, RI 

​Apar Kishor Ganti, MD, MS
Doctor and Mrs. D. Leon UNMC Research Fund Chair in Internal Medicine Staff Physician, VA Nebraska Western Iowa Health Care System Professor of Medicine,  Division of Oncology-Hematology
Professor (Courtesy) of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Associate Director of Clinical Research,  Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center University of Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE

​Erin A. Gillaspie, MD, MPH, FACS
Chief of Thoracic Surgery Creighton University School of Medicine
Assistant Professor of Thoracic Surgery, Head of Thoracic Surgery Robotics Program Vanderbilt University
Medical Center
Omaha, NE 

​Jhanelle Gray, MD
Co-Leader, Molecular Medicine Program​ Department
Chair & Program Leader, Department of Thoracic Oncology​
Senior Member, Department of Thoracic Oncology and Tumor Biology​ Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute​ Professor, Department of Oncologic Sciences​ University of South Florida​ Tampa, FL

​Robert I. Haddad, MD
Chief, Division of Head and Neck Oncology McGraw
Chair in Head and Neck Oncology Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Boston MA

​Benjamin Herzberg, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Columbia University Irving
Medical Center
New York, NY

​John Heymach, MD, PhD
Chair; Professor David Bruton, Jr Chair in Cancer Research, Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology Division of Cancer Medicine The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX

​Wade Iams, MD, MSCI
Assistant Professor of Medicine Department of Medicine’s Division of Hematology and Oncology and Director of Thoracic Clinical Trials Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Nashville, TN

​Prantesh Jain, MD, FACP
 Assistant Professor, Department of Thoracic Oncology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology-Oncology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo (UB), The State University of New York (SUNY)
Buffalo, NY

​Gregory Peter Kalemkerian, MD
Clinical Professor
Rogel Cancer Center
Ann Arbor, MI

​Nagla Abdel Karim, MD, PhD
Director of Phase I Program
Inova Schar Cancer Institute
Professor of Medicine
University of Virginia

Jacob M. Kaufman, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor, Division of Medical Oncology, The Ohio State University Columbus, OH 

So Yeon Kim, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) Yale School of Medicine Yale University
North Haven, CT

​Rupesh Kotecha, MD
Professor Chief of Radiosurgery Director of CNS Metastasis
Director of Research in Radiation Oncology Department of Radiation Oncology Baptist Health Miami Cancer Institute Miami, FL

​Corey J. Langer, MD, FACP
Director of Thoracic Oncology Abramson Cancer Center Professor of Medicine Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

​Jay M. Lee, MD
Surgical Director, Thoracic Oncology Program   Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center Surgical Director Robert G. Kardashian Center for Esophageal Health Associate Professor of Surgery David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Division of Thoracic Surgery   University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 

​Natasha Leighl, MD, MMSc, FRCPC, FASCO
Lead Medical Oncologist​
Clinician Investigator​ Clinical Research Unit (CCRU)​ Princess Margaret
Cancer Centre​
Professor​ Department of Medicine​ University of Toronto​
Toronto, ON

​Steven H. Lin, MD, PhD
Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, Division of Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX

Billy W. Loo, Jr, MD, PhD, FASTRO, FACR
Professor of Radiation Oncology (Radiation Therapy) Stanford Dept Of Radiation Oncology Stanford Medicine Stanford CA

​Patrick Chi-Chung Ma, MD, MSc Professor, Department of Medicine Interim Chief, Division of Hematology and Oncology
Associate Director of Translational Research Penn State Cancer Institute Penn State College of Medicine,
Penn State University
Hershey, PA

​Ranee Mehra, MD
Professor of Medical Oncology
Director of Head and Neck Medical Oncology Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center. University of Maryland​
Baltimore, MD

​Barbara Melosky, MD, FRCP(C)
Professor of Medicine
The University of British Columbia
Medical Oncologist, BC Cancer Vancouver, BC

​Robert E. Merritt, MD
Thoracic Surgeon, Professor and Director, Division of Thoracic Surgery The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH

​Drew Moghanaki, MD, MPH
Professor and Chief of Thoracic Oncology UCLA Department of Radiation Oncology Stanley Iezman and Nancy Stark Endowed Chair in Thoracic Radiation Oncology Research
Staff Physician & Co-Director, VA Greater Los Angeles Lung Precision Oncology Program
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

Ramya Muddasani, DO Hematology/Oncology Fellow, PGY6 City of Hope Comprehensive
Cancer Center
Duarte, CA

​Timothy W. Mullett, MD, MBA, FACS Professor, Division of
Cardiothoracic Surgery
University of Kentucky
College of Medicine
Chair, Commission on Cancer American College of Surgeons
Medical Director, Network Operations University of Kentucky Markey
Cancer Center
Lexington, KY

​Claire K. Mulvey, MD
Assistant Professor
Division of Hematology/Oncology
University of California San Francisco San Francisco CA

Misako Nagasaka, MD
Associate Clinical Professor
Division of Hematology/Oncology Department of Medicine
University of California Irvine
School of Medicine
Orange, CA

​Marcelo Vailati Negrao, MD
Assistant Professor​
Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology​
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center​
Houston, TX​

​Eziafa I. Oduah MD, PhD, MPH  Assistant Professor, Medicine Duke University, School of Medicine
Duke University
Durham , NC 

​Michael D. Offin, MD
Thoracic Oncologist
Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Centre
New York, NY

​Edwin J. Ostrin, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of General Internal Medicine, Division of Internal Medicine, Assistant Professor, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Division of Internal Medicine
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX

​Sandip P. Patel, MD
Professor, Member Thoracic Oncology, Cancer Immunotherapy Programs Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center
La Jolla, CA

​Sonam Puri, MD
Thoracic Oncologist, Moffitt
Cancer Center
Tampa, FL 

​Deepa Rangachari, MD
Assistant Professor, Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Attending Physician, Medicine, Medical Oncology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Director of Hematology/Oncology Graduate Medical Education, Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Boston, MA

​Sawsan Rashdan, MD
Assistant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center Dallas, TXSawsan Rashdan, MD Assistant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, TX

​Neal E. Ready, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine Member of the Duke Cancer Institute
Head and Neck Oncologist,
Medical Oncologist, Duke Health Duke University Hospital
Durham, NC

​Ari J. Rosenberg, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine Section of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine University of Chicago Chicago, IL

​Julia Rotow, MD
 Medical Oncologist Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ​
Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology ​ Clinical Instructor in Medicine​, Harvard Medical School ​
Boston, MA

​Bertrand Routy, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Hemato-Oncology, University of Montreal (CHUM)
Scientific Director of the CHUM Microbiome Centre University of Montreal Research Centre (CRCHUM) Montreal, QC

​Joshua K. Sabari, MD
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Director, High Reliability Organization Initiative Perlmutter Cancer Center
New York, NY

Ravi Salgia, MD, PhD ​
Professor and Arthur & Rosalie Kaplan Chair ​ City of Hope ​
Duarte, CA ​

Andreas Saltos, MD
Associate Member, Department of Thoracic Oncology​ Clinical Research Medical Director, Department of Thoracic Oncology Moffitt Cancer Center​ Tampa, FL

Rafael Santana-Davila, MD
Associate Professor, Division of Hematology and Oncology,
University of Washington
Associate Professor, Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center Medical Director, Infusion and Pharmacy Services, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Seattle, WA

​Jennifer L. Sauter, MD
Associate Member, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Associate Attending Pathologist Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases
New York, NY 

Nan Sethakorn, MD
Assistant Professor Stritch School of Medicine Loyola University
Chicago Maywood, IL 

​Lynette M. Sholl, MD
Chief, Thoracic Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Associate Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

Charles B. Simone, II, MD, FASTRO, FACRO
Research Professor and Chief Medical Officer, New York Proton Center Member, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
New York, NY

​Luana Sousa, MD
Assistant Professor, Thoracic Head and Neck Medical Oncology, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Houston, TX

​Rajat Thawani, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine Section of Hematology/Oncology
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL

​Anne S. Tsao, MD
Professor, Thoracic Section Chief, Director, Thoracic Chemo-Radiation Program, Director, Mesothelioma Program, Clinical Medical Director, Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX

​Eric Vallières, MD FRCSC
Medical Director, Division of Thoracic Surgery Swedish Cancer Institute Seattle, Washington

Victoria M. Villaflor, MD
Professor of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics Research
Section Chief, Head & Neck Oncology Department of Medical Oncology & Therapeutics Research
City of Hope
Duarte, CA

​Saiama Naheed Waqar, MBBS, MSCI Professor of Medicine, Division of Oncology, Department of Medicine,
Research Director for Thoracic Oncology Director of Education for Oncology, Washington University School of Medicine
Saint Louis, MI

Hideo Watanabe, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Associate Professor, Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
New York, NY

Paul Wheatley-Price, BSc, MBChB, FRCP(UK), MD
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Staff Medical Oncologist and Clinician Investigator, Division of Medical Oncology, The Ottawa Hospital
Cancer Centre
Ottawa, ON

​Terence Williams, MD, PhD
Professor and Chair, Department of Radiation Oncology
City of Hope National Medical Center Duarte, CA 

​Ignacio I Wistuba, MD
Professor and Chair, Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, Division of Pathology/Lab Medicine,
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Faculty, University of Texas Graduate School of
Biomedical Sciences
Houston, TX

Fawzi F. Abu Rous, MD 

Medical Oncologist, Henry Ford Health, Detroit, MI

Dr. Fawzi Abu Rous is a medical oncologist at Henry Ford Health Care. He is a specialist in the care of patients diagnosed with lung cancer, malignant pleural mesothelioma, and other thoracic malignancies. Dr. Abu Rous graduated from the University of Jordan Faculty of Medicine in 2015. He completed his Internal Medicine residency from Michigan State University/Sparrow Hospital in 2019 and Hematology/Oncology fellowship from Henry Ford Hospital in 2023. Dr. Abu Rous conducts research on lung cancer, specializing in developing biomarkers to guide treatment decisions. He secured funding from the ASCO Conquer Cancer Foundation in 2023 for his work on squamous cell carcinoma biomarkers. Additionally, he designs and leads clinical trials for lung cancer treatment, exploring innovative combinations such as immunotherapy, targeted therapies, and antibody-drug conjugates.

​Asrar AlAhmadi, MBBS, MAS-CR

​Assistant Professor, Division of Medical Oncology
Department of Internal Medicine, James Cancer Center
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio 

Dr. Asrar AlAhmadi is a medical oncologist who specializes in treating thoracic malignancies, including non-small cell lung cancer, small cell lung cancer, thymoma and mesothelioma. As a research scientist, her main focus is on early drug development, biomarker driven clinical trials and cancer related outcomes. Additionally, she has received the Linda Arena Endowed Scholarship Award from the UH-Seidman Cancer Center to study targeted therapy in small cell lung cancer and developed a clinical trial concept that received pharmaceutical support from Eli Lilly Oncology to fund the proposal. She is passionate about medical oncology because of the special relationship and meaningful human connection that she develops with her patients.

​David A. Barbie, MD

​Thoracic Medical Oncologist, Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology
Dana-Farber Associate Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School
Associate Director Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science
Boston, MA

Dr. Barbie’s research has had a strong translational focus, studying the role of innate immunity in lung cancer. His early collaborations with Gilead Sciences led to the first TBK1 inhibitor trials using a repurposed multitargeted JAK inhibitor. He was principal investigator of a multicenter lung cancer clinical trial using this first-generation drug and his work also led to similar studies in colorectal and pancreatic cancer. Currently his laboratory is developing ways to co-opt TBK1 signaling to drive an antiviral response that can boost the impact of cancer immunotherapies. As a fellow he was the recipient of an ASCO Young Investigator award and NIH K08 grant. Since starting his laboratory, he has also received an ASCI Young Physician Scientist Award and was elected as an ASCI Member in 2019. Currently he is a principal or co-principal investigator on multiple NIH grants including the DF/HCC Lung Cancer SPORE, R01, and U01 awards. He has also received significant funding from the V Foundation, SU2C, the Mark Foundation, the Ludwig Center, and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

​Trever G. Bivona, MD, PhD

​​Professor of Medicine (joint with Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology)
Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center University of
California, San Francisco
Senior Investigator, Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub San
Francisco, CA

Trever Bivona, M.D. Ph.D. is a cell and molecular biologist and a laboratory-based physician scientist at the University of California, San Francisco where he is a medical oncologist and Professor of Medicine and of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology. He earned his doctorate in cell and molecular biology from New York University School of Medicine, where he also earned his medical degree. He then completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a fellowship in medical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Bivoma is also a physician scientist, studying lung cancer with the goal of translating findings into new therapies. He leads a research program focused on signal transduction and cancer genetics and the molecular basis of tumor initiation, evolution, and drug resistance. Dr Bivona’s major area of interest is the function and therapeutic targeting of oncogenic receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) such as EGFR and ALK as well as RAS GTPase signaling. Dr. Bivona is currently Principal Investigator of the NIH/NCI U54 Bay Area Drug Resistance and Sensitivity Center and is a Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub Senior Investigator.

​Hossein Borghaei, DO, MS

​Chief of Thoracic Medical Oncology Professor, Department of Oncology/Hematology Co-Leader, Molecular Therapeutics Program The Gloria and Edmund M. Dunn
Chair in Thoracic Malignancies Fox Chase Cancer Center
Philadelphia, PA

Dr. Borghaei earned his degree at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed a residency at Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia. Since completing his fellowship training at Fox Chase, he has been involved in a number of clinical trials aimed at developing new, antibody-based therapies and immunotherapies for patients with lung cancer. In addition to his clinical practice and participation in immunotherapy-based clinical trials, Dr. Borghaei is the principal investigator (PI) of a laboratory that develops new monoclonal antibodies and novel immune-modulating drugs, with the aim of bringing these approaches to the clinic. He served as the PI of a phase III randomized study that proved the effectiveness of nivolumab in the treatment of patients with advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer after progression on prior chemotherapy. This work led to the approval of nivolumab, one of the first immunotherapy-based drugs to be approved for lung cancer in this setting. Dr. Borghaei is the co-chair of the thoracic committee of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) and has in the past been a member of the NCCN non-small cell lung cancer guidleines. He is the recipient of an American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Young Investigator Award and an ASCO Career Development Award. Dr. Borghaei is a long-standing member of ASCO, AACR, IASLC, SITC and ECOG thoracic committee. He was recognized by the CURE Magazine as a Lung Cancer Hero in 2021. Dr. Borghaei has been a recipient of the Robert Krigel Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence from Fox Chase Cancer Center, ASCO’s Young Investigator Award and the Career Development Award from ASCO. His work has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, The Lancet Oncology, Leukemia Research, Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, Clinical Lung Cancer, and Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

Penelope Bradbury, MB, BCh, FRACP, MD

Active staff medical oncologist, Division of Medical Oncology and Hematology, Department of Medicine, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Ontario, CA

Penelope Bradbury is a staff medical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Canada; Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto. After obtaining her medical degree from the University of Cardiff, UK, and fellow in medical oncology from the Australasian College of Physicians, she undertook postgraduate fellowships at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, ON and the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, ON, Canada. She was previously a senior investigator within the Canadian Cancer Trials Group for the thoracic and investigational new drugs program, during which time she held a Cancer Care Ontario Research Chair in Experimental Therapeutics. She has a research interest in the evaluation of new therapies for the management of thoracic malignancies and clinical trial methodology and is the current chair of the CCTG Lung Disease Site Committee.

Jeremy Brownstein, MD

Assistant Professor, Radiation Oncology
Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
Ohio State University
Columbus, OH

Dr. Jeremy Brownstein, MD is an Assistant Professor at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. He is a radiation oncologist specializing in treating patients with thoracic malignancies like lung cancer, mesothelioma and thymoma/thymic carcinoma. Dr. Brownstein graduated from Stony Brook University Hospital and completed his residency and fellowship in Radiation Oncology from Duke University Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital Dr. Brownstein’s research interest lies in the applications of particle therapy to the treatment of these diseases and solid tumors in general. As opposed to photon radiation, particle therapy allows effective treatment of cancers while exposing nearby critical organs to less radiation. He is also interested in the application of radiation therapy to care for benign conditions. He is working to develop a program that utilizes highly focused radiation to treat deadly cardiac arrhythmias that are refractory to both medications and conventional ablations techniques.

David Paul Carbone, MD, PhD

Professor Barbara J. Bonner Chair in Lung Cancer
Research Director, James Thoracic Center
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH

David Carbone is Professor of Internal Medicine, Director of the James Thoracic Oncology Center at the OSUMC. He graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College in 1977 and received an MD and a PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University in 1985. After an Internal Medicine internship and residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, he did a Medical Oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD. At Vanderbilt he was Director of the Thoracic/Head and Neck Cancer Program, Director of a SPORE in Lung Cancer for 11 years. He was recruited to The Ohio State University in 2012 to direct the James Thoracic Oncology Center. His research interests have been focused on lung cancer and specifically proteomic and expression signature development, lung cancer genetics, tumor-associated immunosuppression mechanisms, proteogenomic profiling of lung cancers to guide the development of novel therapeutics and targeting novel immunosuppression mechanisms. He has over 280 peer-reviewed publications, has served on the Board of Scientific Counselors, and has continuous NCI funding since early in his career. He was previously Past-President of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).

Jamie E. Chaft, MD

Thoracic Oncologist Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
New York, NY

Dr. Chaft specializes in Medical Oncology, with a special focus on Lung Cancer and is affiliated with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She graduated from NYU School of Medicine in 2006 and completed her training at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. She is the lead investigator on all trials evaluating multimodality treatment for non-small cell lung cancers. Dr. Chaft’s research interest lies in identifying biomarkers to preferentially select a drug treatment regimen that is likely to be more effective against that individual’s lung cancer.

Haiying Cheng, MD

Associate Professor, Department of Oncology (Medical Oncology)
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine (Oncology & Hematology)
Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center
Bronx, NY

Haiying Cheng MD, PhD is a medical oncologist and translational researcher. Dr. Cheng is an Associate Professor in the Department of Oncology and is also an independently funded translational researcher whose work attempts to identify novel therapeutic targets in lung cancer patients and to launch biomarker-based interventions. Moreover, Dr. Cheng is deeply involved in investigating the multifaceted treatment barriers and biological determinants impacting patient outcomes, particularly among minority and underrepresented groups affected by lung cancer.

Anne Chiang, MD, PhD, FASCO

Associate Professor of Medicine Associate Yale Cancer Center, Director, Clinical Initiatives Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT

Anne Chiang, MD, PhD, currently serves as an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of Medical Oncology, specializing in thoracic oncology, with a background in translational research in metastasis, as well as extensive experience in clinical practice in both academic and community settings. Her clinical focus has been to build a small cell lung cancer program at Yale with a comprehensive portfolio of clinical trials testing novel therapeutics for these patients. Her research interests focus on development of clinical trials and translational studies to test novel agents and combinations with immune checkpoint inhibitors for both small cell and non- small cell lung tumors. In addition, she is the Associate Yale Cancer Center Director of Clinical Initiatives. She has also served as Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Chief Integration Officer for Smilow Cancer Hospital (SCH), having helped to build the SCH Network and oversee operations, quality efforts and clinical research in 15 Smilow Care Centers. She has a particular focus in quality measurement and improvement and has spearheaded quality initiatives locally and nationally for ASCO.

Quincy Chu, MD, FRCP(C)

Associate Professor, Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Oncology, University of Alberta Medical Oncologist, Cross Cancer Institute, Edmonton, Alberta

Dr. Quincy Chu has been a medical oncologist at the Cross Cancer Institute since April 2005 with medical oncology training in Canada and subsequent phase I/clinical research fellowship in novel anti-cancer drugs at the Institute for Drug Development in San Antonio, Texas. During which he was involved in a large number of novel anti-cancer agents and had extra training in novel trial design and clinical pharmacology. Currently, Dr. Chu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Oncology of University of Alberta. He continues his clinical and translational research in novel drug development, including targeted agents and immune-oncology agents, in thoracic oncology. He is the co-Lead and Lead for Phase I unit and the Thoracic Research Unit, respectively, at the Cross Cancer Institute.

Ben Creelan, MD

​Thoracic Oncologist
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute
Tampa, FL

Dr. Creelan earned his MD from Jefferson Medical College. He completed an Internal Medicine Residency at Thomas Jefferson University in the Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Creelan then completed a Hematology Oncology Fellowship at the University of South Florida at Moffitt Cancer Center and a Master’s Degree in Clinical and Translational Research through the National Institute of Health K30-sponsored SPOR program. Dr. Creelan will focus on translational and clinical research, specifically the development of new immune therapies, for the treatment of lung cancers. His research efforts aim to more effectively treat these cancers based on new insights into the biology of the disease.

Amy Cummings, MD

​Assistant Professor of Medicine David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Santa Monica, CA

Dr. Cummings completed her PhD in Bioengineering at UCLA and received her medical degree from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California where she graduated with honors and was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. She completed both her internal medicine residency and her hematology and oncology fellowship at UCLA. During her training, she served as Chief Fellow for the Hematology and Oncology Fellowship and co-Chief of the Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) Program as well as received the Olga Levin Inspiration Award in 2016 and a National Young Investigator’s Award for lung cancer in 2019. She since has become an Associate Director at the NCI-designated Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA where she focuses on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion and the University of California Lung Cancer Consortium (UCLCC). She runs clinical trials in early-stage lung cancer and works to further equitable drug development with funding and publications involving multi-omic correlative work and human leukocyte antigen in non-small cell lung cancer.   

Parth Anil Desai, MD, MBBS

Assistant Professor,  Department of Medical Oncology/Hematology, Temple University Health System, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA

Dr Desai serves as an Assistant Professor and Clinical Investigator at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, with an adjunct professorship at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine in Philadelphia. His clinical and research endeavors are dedicated to advancing our understanding and treatment of head and neck as well as thoracic malignancies, with a particular emphasis on the innovation of early-phase clinical trial designs and the enhancement of translational research. Dr. Desai’s current research is intensely focused on unraveling the pathophysiology of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs). This involves a deep dive into the mechanisms behind treatment-emergent recurrence, leveraging patient-derived tumor biopsies and state-of-the-art sequencing technologies. His ultimate goal is to lead the development of early-phase clinical trials for solid tumors and to be at the forefront of oncological translational research, particularly in the realms of cancer recurrence and metastasis. A specific area of interest within Dr. Desai’s research is the exploration of tumor microenvironment (TME)-directed therapies. An example of a notable success story in this area is the inhibition of the PD1-PDL1 axis. In the near term, his aim is to generate and validate innovative hypotheses through the analysis of next-generation sequencing data, with the hope of driving significant breakthroughs in both the clinical ("bedside") and experimental ("bench side") facets of HNSCC research. Through these efforts, he aspires to contribute to the development of novel treatment strategies that will have a meaningful impact on the field of oncology.

Maximilian Diehn, MD, PhD

Jack, Lulu and Sam Willson Professor in Cancer Biology, Division Chief, Radiation and Cancer Biology, Division Vice Chair of Research Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Dr. Max Diehn received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his M.D./Ph.D. from Stanford University. He then completed radiation oncology residency at Stanford and subsequently joined the faculty. He currently is the Jack, Lulu, and Sam Willson Professor, Vice Chair of Research, and Division Chief of Radiation and Cancer Biology in the Department of Radiation Oncology. Dr. Diehn is a physician scientist and radiation oncologist who specializes in the treatment of lung cancer. His research program spans laboratory, translational, and clinical studies. The focus of his research efforts is on the development and application of liquid biopsy technologies for cancer screening, treatment response assessment, and detection of minimal residual disease. Dr. Diehn has served on numerous committees for national and international organizations including NCI, ASCO, AACR, ESMO, and IASLC. He is a Scientific Editor for Cancer Discovery and serves on the Thoracic Malignancies Steering Committee of the NCI. Dr. Diehn has been recognized with a variety of awards, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the V Foundation Scholar Award, the Sidney Kimmel Scholar Award, the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award, and election into the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine for his research contributions in the field of liquid biopsies in 2021.

Konstantin H. Dragnev, MD

Professor of Medicine Irene Heinz Given Professor in Pharmacology
Norris Cotton Cancer Center
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Dartmouth Giesel School of Medicine
Lebanon, NH

Dr. Konstantin Dragnev is professor of medicine and Irene Heinz given professor in pharmacology at Darthmouth Geisel School of Medicine. Dr. Dragnev is medical oncologist/hematologist at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) in New Hampshire. Dr. Dragnev graduated from the Higher Institute of Medicine in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1987 and completed his residency and fellowship from Baylor College of Medicine and Memorial Sloan Kettering respectively in 1996. In 1998 he transferred to the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center to complete his third year of fellowship. On July 1, 1999, he joined the staff of the Section of Hematology/Oncology at the DHMC as a lung cancer specialist. He focuses on lung cancer prevention, targeted molecular therapies, lung cancer, mesothelioma and esophageal cancer. He serves on the NCCC Clinical Cancer Review Committee and as the Co-Chair of the Alliance Publications Committee.

Dr. Dragnev’s research focuses on a number of promising tactics for improving difficult cancer treatments. He has studied the role of cytochrome P-450 in chemically associated cancer development as well as a potential cyclin D1 pathway for lung cancer therapy. Dr. Dragnev is the Principal Investigator of several studies including a dose escalation trial of the combination of docetaxel, gemcitabine and filgrastim (NeupogenTM) for the treatment of patients with advanced solid tumors.

Martin J. Edelman, MD

​Professor and Chair, Department of Hematology/Oncology Associate
Director of the Cancer Center for Clinical Research Integration G. Morris Dorrance Chair in Medical Oncology Fox Chase Cancer Center
Philadelphia, PA

Dr. Edelman received his B.S. and M.D. in 1982 from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute/ Albany Medical College 6-year program and was and intern and resident in Internal Medicine and Fellow in Hematology/Oncology at the Naval Medical Center San Diego. Dr. Edelman joined the faculty at the University of California, Davis 1990. In 1999, he went to the University of Maryland. He has been active in the NCTN as the medical oncology co-chair for the NRG Lung Cancer Committee and a member of the ECOG Lung Cancer Committee and was previously with CALGB and SWOG. Dr. Edelman is a member of the Thoracic Malignancies Steering Committee of the NCI. He has also served as the Chair of the Integration Panel for the DOD Congressionally Mandated Research Program for lung cancer, and the ASCO program, education and governmental affairs committees. He is a past Chair of the Ethics Committee and the Career Development Committee and a member of the Communications Committee of the IASLC and a Deputy Editor of the journal “Lung Cancer”. Currently he chairs the scientific advisory board for the Lung Cancer Foundation of America. He has published over 200 peer reviewed papers in the field. In February 2017, he moved to Fox Chase Cancer Center to become the Chair of the Department of Hematology/Oncology and in 2023 also became the inaugural Chair of the Department of Medical Oncology of the Lewis Katz School of Medicine of Temple University.

Wafik El-Deiry, MD, PhD, FACP

​Mencoff Family University Professor of Medical Science 
Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Director of the Cancer Center Director of the Joint Program in Cancer Biology Brown University
Associate Dean for Oncologic Sciences
Warren Alpert Medical School
Providence, RI

Wafik El-Deiry, MD, PhD, FACP is the Associate Dean for Oncologic Sciences at the Warren Alpert Medical School, Director of the Cancer Center at Brown University, and Director of the Joint Program in Cancer Biology at Brown University and affiliated hospitals. He is an American Cancer Society Research Professor, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Professor of Medical Science, and Mencoff Family University Professor at Brown University. He earned MD/PhD degrees from University of Miami School of Medicine and completed internal medicine residency and medical oncology fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. El-Deiry elucidated the genomic DNA-binding consensus sequence for the p53 tumor suppressor protein. This work has helped identify numerous genes as direct p53 targets and effectors of tumor suppression. He went on to discover cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitor p21(WAF1) as a p53 target gene and cell cycle inhibitor that explained the mammalian cell stress response.

Dr. El-Deiry made important contributions in cell death signaling and our understanding of the sensitivity of tumors to chemotherapy including the original discovery of TRAIL death receptor 5 (DR5) as a p53 target and mediator of extrinsic cell death after DNA damage. He discovered and brought first-in-class TRAIL-pathway activating small-molecule ONC201/TIC10 into clinical trials for patients with cancer. He won the Michael Brown Award from University of Pennsylvania (1998), the Elizabeth and John Cox Award from Georgetown (2005), the 2009 Kuwait Prize for “Cancer Diseases.” Dr. El-Deiry is an elected member of the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars (2014-).

Apar Kishor Ganti, MD, MS

Doctor and Mrs. D. Leon UNMC Research Fund Chair in Internal Medicine Staff Physician,  VA Nebraska Western Iowa Health Care System Professor of Medicine,  Division of Oncology-Hematology Professor (Courtesy) of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Associate Director of Clinical Research,  Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center University of Nebraska Medical Center Omaha, NE

Dr. Apar Kishor Ganti is a physician-scientist, who completed his medical training and a residency in Clinical Pharmacology in Pune, India. He subsequently completed an Internal Medicine residency, a Medical Oncology fellowship and a Master’s Program in Clinical and Translational Research in the United States. Dr. Ganti specializes in the care of patients with head and neck, thyroid, and lung cancer at the Omaha VA Medical Center and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr. Ganti serves as the Associate Director of Clinical Research at the UNMC Fred and Pamela Buffett Cancer Center. In addition, he is a member of the Respiratory Committee of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. He is the Chair of the Small Cell Lung Cancer Committee of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and a member of the VA Clinical Science Research & Development Centralized Data Monitoring Committee. Dr. Ganti’s research interests are focused on development of novel treatment approaches for patients who are not candidates for standard therapies. His laboratory is focused on evaluating new pathways in head and neck and lung cancer and identifying novel prognostic and predictive biomarkers for these malignancies.

Erin A. Gillaspie, MD, MPH, FACS

Chief of Thoracic Surgery Creighton University School of Medicine
Assistant Professor of Thoracic Surgery, Head of Thoracic Surgery Robotics Program, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Omaha, NE 

Dr. Erin Gillaspie is Assistant Professor of Thoracic Surgery and Head of Thoracic Surgery Robotic Program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She has recently joined as the Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Creighton University Medical Center. Dr. Gillaspie graduated from University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in 2008. She completed residency in surgery and cardiothoracic surgery from Bassett Medical Center, Cooperstown and Mayo Clinic in 2013 and 2016 respectively.

Dr. Gillaspie’s clinical focus revolves around lung cancer, esophageal cancer, mediastinal tumors and pleural mesothelioma. She also plays a role in the Lung Transplant program at Vanderbilt. Dr. Gillaspie is the principal investigator for a mesothelioma clinical trial at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center studying the survival benefits of adding the immunotherapy drug durvalumab to standard chemotherapy, a combination with considerable promise.

Jhanelle Gray, MD

Co-Leader, Molecular Medicine Program​ Department Chair & Program Leader, Department of Thoracic Oncology​
Senior Member, Department of Thoracic Oncology and Tumor Biology​
Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute​
Professor, Department of Oncologic Sciences​
University of South Florida​
Tampa, FL

Dr. Gray is the Department Chair, Program Leader and a Senior Member for Thoracic Oncology at the Moffitt Cancer Center (MCC), co-Leader of the Cancer Center Support Grant Molecular Medicine Program and Professor in the Department of Oncologic Sciences at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine.A renowned Thoracic medical oncologist and clinical scientist, Dr. Gray is actively involved and leads numerous clinical research trials that investigate novel immunotherapeutic and targeted therapy drug combinations for lung cancer which have greatly influenced standard of care treatment. Her research has generated over 80 publications in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals, including original manuscripts and reviews. A leader in NCI cooperative group trials and Chair of the IASLC Membership Committee, Dr. Gray received her undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, Medical Degree from Cornell University Medical College, and completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at The New York Presbyterian Hospital - Cornell. Following, she completed her Hematology/Medical Oncology Fellowship at Moffitt Cancer Center. Dr. Gray is actively involved as a member of the MCC Scientific Leadership Council and Clinical Research Action Committee. Globally she is the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2022 Meeting Education Program Chair-elect while also serving as a member of the ASCO Lung Scientific Program Committee, IASLC Women in Thoracic Oncology Working Group and Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) Lung Working Group.

Robert I. Haddad, MD

Chief, Division of Head and Neck Oncology McGraw
Chair in Head and Neck Oncology
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Boston MA

Robert I. Haddad, MD, is Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, He is the Division Chief and Institute Physician, Center of Head and Neck Oncology Program, and a member of the Department of Adult Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Haddad received his medical degree from Saint Joseph University, French Faculty of Medicine, and served as intern and resident at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, New York. He completed his fellowship in hematology/oncology at Greenbaum Cancer Center, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Haddad is a member of several professional societies, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

Dr Haddad research is focused on identifying innovative forms of treatment in Head and Neck Cancer. His research activities involve the use of induction chemotherapy for patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer and the development of novel immunotherapeutic agents for treating locally advanced disease. He has been instrumental in the development, execution and publication of numerous phase II and III trials in head and neck cancer. These trials have advanced the field of head and neck oncology and have resulted in new therapies for patients.

Dr Haddad is also involved in teaching oncology fellows as well as medical residents, and ENT residents through the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute outpatient clinic and Brigham and Women’s Hospital inpatient service. He lectures extensively on head and neck cancer at the local, regional, national and international levels and has been invited to lecture in prestigious institutions and at national and international forums. He has presented his work at important scientific meetings such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American Head and Neck Society Meeting (AHNS) and has edited two textbooks on head and neck cancer.

Dr Haddad has an active role in the national comprehensive cancer network (NCCN) where he participates as a committee member in the head and neck committee and chair of the thyroid cancer committee. In this capacity, He helps write treatment guidelines. He has authored more than 200 publications related to Head and Neck cancer.

Benjamin Herzberg, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Columbia University, Irving Medical Center, New York, NY

Dr. Herzberg is a clinical oncologist and translational cancer scientist at Columbia University. He received his AB from Princeton University in Chemistry and Computational Biology, where he studied cancer metabolomics with Joshua Rabinowitz. He then obtained a degree in the History of Science and Medicine at Imperial College, London, focusing on the early history of 20th century organic chemistry and biochemistry. He moved on to Harvard Medical School where he received MD with honors from the Harvard-MIT HST program and spent his research time in the laboratory of James Bradner, studying the mechanisms of protein degraders. He completed residency training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Stanbury Physician-Scientist training program followed by fellowship in medical oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he was a Chief Fellow and worked in the lab of Alex Kentsis and under the clinical supervision of Gregory Riely. Dr. Herzberg now serves as a thoracic medical oncologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, where he focuses on the development of novel therapeutics for lung and other cancers. He is particularly interested in understanding determinants of response and resistance to targeted cancer therapies and in using genomic data to match patients to targeted therapy trials. He has run clinical trials with molecules taking advantage of new pharmacologic mechanisms such as protein degradation, molecular glues, and synthetic-lethal (non-oncogene) inhibitors. He is a national study co-chair for multiple industry-sponsored and NIH-sponsored clinical trials in Phase 1 and thoracic oncology settings, the Columbia PI of the Biden Moonshot Biobanking Initiative and co-investigator of the Columbia ETCTN program. Dr. Herzberg’s laboratory work focuses on understanding mechanisms of tumor resistance and sensitivity to targeted therapies, and especially on understanding vulnerabilities of resistant and persister cells after tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment. His experience in chemical biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and clinical/translational science has given him the background to pursue complex, multi-specialty translational projects in oncology. During the period of this P30 award, he intends to build on his prior work within the Cancer Center to develop and support NCI- and cooperative-group sponsored trials at Columbia. He has been particularly interested in streamlining the use of clinical genomic data for clinical trial enrollment and development. This award would support time to broaden their pilot programs into Cancer Center-wide matching initiatives. In addition, this would supplement his UM1 funding to develop ETCTN program, the Cancer Moonshot Biobank, and other initiatives. He will be supported during this period by Drs. Rustgi, Hersman, and Lassman.

John Heymach, MD, PhD

​Chair; Professor David Bruton, Jr Chair in Cancer Research
Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology
Division of Cancer Medicine
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX

Dr. Heymach is the Chair of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He holds the David Bruton Endowed Chair in Cancer Research. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and his MD/PhD from Stanford. He completed his Internship and Residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and his fellowship in Medical Oncology from the Dana Farber/Mass General Brigham program. As a physician-scientist, Dr. Heymach’s research focuses on investigating mechanisms of therapeutic resistance to targeted agents, understanding the regulation of angiogenesis in lung cancer, and the development of biomarkers for targeted agents and immunotherapy. His research has led to new therapeutic approaches for KRAS mutant lung cancer, small cell lung cancer (SCLC), EGFR mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), adenoid cystic carcinoma, and oligometastatic NSCLC, many of which are now considered standard of care regimens or undergoing clinical testing. He serves as PI on 4 R01 awards investigating molecular subsets of lung cancer, and on an U01 focused on SCLC. He serves as the MDACC PI for the SU2C-ACS Lung Cancer Dream Team targeting KRAS mutant lung cancers, as the leader of the Lung CCSG Program, and the co-leader of the Lung Cancer Moon Shot. He is also the co-PI and project leader of the Lung SPORE. As a clinical investigator, he leads a number of biomarker-directed clinical trials using targeted and immunotherapy agents in lung cancer. He has directly mentored numerous fellows, including physician-scientists, and serves as chair of the NCI Molecular Cancer Therapeutics-1 study section.

Wade Iams, MD, MSCI

Assistant Professor of Medicine Department of Medicine’s
Division of Hematology and Oncology and Director of Thoracic Clinical Trials Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Nashville, TN

Dr. Iams is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Hematology and Oncology and Director of Thoracic Clinical Trials at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC).

Dr. Iams’ primary research interests are thoracic clinical trial leadership and novel blood biomarker analysis in patients with lung cancer. His goals are to keep Vanderbilt at the leading edge of thoracic clinical trials and blood biomarker clinical applications.

Prantesh Jain, MD, FACP

Assistant Professor, Department of Thoracic Oncology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology-Oncology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo (UB), The State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo,
New York

Prantesh Jain, MD FACP is currently an assistant professor in medical oncology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, New York. He specializes in the treatment of patients with thoracic malignancies, such as lung cancer, thymic malignancies, and mesothelioma. He completed his clinical fellowship in adult Hematology-Oncology from the Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and did a training in clinical research from the National Institutes of Health. Prior to joining fellowship, he served as Clinical Assistant Professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine. His research focus is in developing novel cancer therapeutics- including immune oncology and targeted therapies. He is leading several industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated clinical trials from early pre-clinical phase through phase I/II/III with emphasis on novel immunoncology drugs, targeted agents, novel drug design including histology-agnostic trial development. A major effort of his translational work is also on the identification and evaluation of novel, predictive and prognostic, image-based biomarkers using high-throughput machine learning algorithms (AI) and multi-omics data integration to enable risk stratification and optimal patient selection (precision oncology) for the treatment of lung cancer.

Gregory P. Kalemkerian, MD

Clinical Professor Rogel Cancer Center
Ann Arbor, MI

Dr. Kalemkerian works as a Clinical Professor at Rogel Cancer Center. After completion of his medical education and training, Dr. Kalemkerian was a physician-scientist at Wayne State University/Karmanos Cancer Institute from 1993-1999. Since 1999, he has been on faculty at the University of Michigan, where he currently serves as the Associate Division Chief for Faculty Development and Education, the Associate Director of the Hem/Onc Fellowship Program, and the Disease Group Lead for the Upper Aerodigestive Cancer Team in the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center.

In addition to his work at UM, Dr. Kalemkerian is Chair of the NCCN Small Cell Lung Cancer Guideline Panel and has served on numerous grant review sections, editorial boards, and committees of national and international professional societies. His honors include the receipt of the University of Michigan Outstanding Clinician Award and several Teacher of the Year Awards, as well as election to the University of Michigan League of Clinical Excellence.

Dr. Kalemkerian has given over 200 invited lectures, authored more than 150 research articles, reviews, commentaries and book chapters, and edited two books on lung cancer.

Nagla Abdel Karim, MD, PhD

Director of Phase I Program,  Inova Schar Cancer Institute, Professor of Medicine,  University of Virginia

Dr. Karim is the Director of the Phase I Program at Inova Schar Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine-University of Virginia. She received her Medical degree from the University of Cairo- Faculty of Medicine. She subsequently received her training in Internal Medicine/Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute-The University of Cairo. After obtaining PhD from University of Washington, she did a year of Post-doctoral fellowship at MD Anderson in Cancer Prevention, followed by one-year Research fellowship at The University of Washington. She did a residency in Internal Medicine at Fairview-Cleveland Clinic Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio followed by a 3-year clinical fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at The University of Cincinnati. Dr. Karim’s clinical and research interests are focused on Phase I clinical trials and the personalized approach of therapy for lung cancer. She is the study chair of S1929 clinical trial at SWOG that focuses on personalized therapy for SLFN11 small cell lung cancer. She is also actively involved in neuroendocrine cancer research. She is an investigator and co- investigators of several clinical trials as well as a lead investigator on several translational research projects.

Jacob M. Kaufman, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor, Division of Medical Oncology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Dr. Jacob Kaufman serves as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Medical Oncology at The Ohio State University. He specializes in Medical Oncology, with a special focus on Lung Cancer. Dr. Kaufman graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 2015 and completed his training at Duke University Hospital and Duke University Hospital. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. Dr. Kaufman’s is a member of the Translational Therapeutics Program at the OSUCCC – James. His research is focused on understanding how the specific genetic background of each cancer affects their behaviors in patients, such as immune system evasion and response to treatments. His laboratory specifically focuses on the effects of mutations in the LKB1 gene (also known as STK11). Tumors with these mutations are difficult to treat because they do not respond to our best targeted drugs, such as EGFR and ALK inhibitors, and are also resistant to our best immunotherapy treatments.

So Yeon Kim, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) Yale School of Medicine, Yale University North Haven, CT

So Yeon Kim, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Kim completed her undergraduate studies at Princeton University and received her medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She completed her internal medicine residency at Tufts Medical Center and completed her hematology oncology fellowship at Montefiore Medical Center. Dr. Kim's clinical practice is focused primarily on caring for patients with thoracic malignancies. In 2022, she received the ASCO Merit Award based on her research on MET exon14 skipping mutations in non-small cell lung cancer. Her ongoing research interests include targeted treatment and immunotherapy approaches in lung cancer.

Rupesh Kotecha, MD

Professor Chief of Radiosurgery
Director of CNS Metastasis
Director of Research in Radiation Oncology Department of Radiation Oncology Baptist Health Miami Cancer Institute
Miami, FL

Rupesh Kotecha, M.D., is a board-certified radiation oncologist and Chief of Radiosurgery in the Department of Radiation Oncology and Director of the Central Nervous System (CNS) Metastasis program at Miami Cancer Institute. He is a professor in the departments of radiation oncology and translational medicine at the FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and an adjunct faculty in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He has specialized training and experience in utilizing the latest techniques in radiation therapy for both cancer and noncancerous conditions. His research background and clinical interests have primarily focused on the treatment of patients with stereotactic radiotherapy, including CyberKnife, LINAC-based, and GammaKnife radiosurgery,. He also specializes in advanced radiation therapy treatment techniques, including re-irradiation, proton beam radiotherapy, and MR-guided radiation therapy. During medical school, Dr. Kotecha was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, an organization that recognizes excellence in scholarship and the profession of medicine. He has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international symposiums and has published book chapters and over 100 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. His research bandwidth spans investigator-initiated studies to multi-center trials to national cooperative group clinical protocols. Dr. Kotecha serves as the CNS co-chair for the Proton Collaborative Group, coordinates the NCI Glioblastoma Clinical Interest Group, and is a course director for the annual Miami Brain Symposium. He is an editorial contributor and advisory board member on the topic of brain cancer for Practice Update, an online resource for healthcare providers throughout the United States and around the world.

Corey J. Langer, MD, FACP

Director of Thoracic Oncology Abramson Cancer Center
Professor of Medicine Perelman School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Dr. Langer is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, where he serves as Clinical Director of Thoracic Oncology in the Abramson Cancer Center. Professor Langer received his medical degree from Boston University in 1981 and completed his residency in medicine at the Graduate Hospital, University of Pennsylvania, and his hematology/oncology fellowship at Presbyterian University of Pennsylvania and Fox Chase Cancer Center in 1987.

Professor Langer served in the Oncology division of Fox Chase Cancer Center from 1986–2008, leading its Thoracic Oncology Program from 1994–2008. He moved to the University of Pennsylvania in 2008, where he currently leads clinical research efforts in thoracic malignancy as part of the Interdisciplinary Thoracic Oncology Program (I-TOP) and conducts research studies focused on the role of targeted therapy and immunotherapy in NSCLC. He also co-directs the Thoracic Translational Center of Excellence, where he concentrates on the clinical end of bench to bedside projects.

Professor Langer is Co-Chair of the Medical Oncology Committee for NRG Cooperative Oncology Group and serves on the core thoracic committees of both NRG and ECOG. Professor Langer is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC). Since 2016, he has been Editor-in-Chief of the International Lung Cancer News (ILCN) under the aegis of the IASLC.

For the past 34 years, since completing his fellowship, Professor Langer has led or co-led over 140 clinical trials in both small cell (SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as well as mesothelioma and head and neck cancer. Professor Langer has contributed numerous articles and abstracts to the medical literature and is the author or co-author of over 270 peer-reviewed papers.

Jay M. Lee, MD

Surgical Director, Thoracic Oncology Program
Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center
Surgical Director Robert G. Kardashian Center for
Esophageal Health Associate Professor of Surgery
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Division of Thoracic Surgery
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

Jay M. Lee, M.D., is the Surgical Director of the Thoracic Oncology Program, and Associate Professor of Surgery (Tenure Track) at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He received his medical degree from UCLA and training in General Surgery at Georgetown and Duke University Medical Centers.  He completed a Thoracic Research Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and received Thoracic Surgery training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Lee has published extensively in the field of thoracic oncology and has a funded research laboratory.  His scientific effort has focused on translational trials involving investigator-initiated immunotherapy in human lung cancer and modulation of the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment.  He is the Principal Investigator of the “Combined Gene modified dendritic cell therapy and PD-1 inhibition for lung cancer” trial, which is patented at UCLA. Dr. Lee is on the Steering/Executive Committee of several neoadjuvant trials in resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) including LCMC3 (atezolizumab), CANOPY-N (canakinumab and/or pembrolizumab), NAUTIKA1 (alectinib, entrectinib, vemurafenib plus combimetinib, pralsetinib, or stereotactic body radiation therapy plus atezolizumab), and GEOMETRY-N (capmatinib). He is on the Executive Committee of the LCMC4/LEADER trial to define driver mutations in early-stage NSCLC.

Dr. Lee is an author on numerous peri-operative clinical trials including LCMC3 and IMPower 010 (adjuvant atezolizumab). Dr. Lee is Board-certified by the American Board of Surgery (ABS) and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery (ABTS). He is a member of many professional organizations and serves on leadership committees for the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS), American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).  Dr. Lee serves on several editorial boards of prestigious journals.

Natasha Leighl, MD, MMSc, FRCPC, FASCO

Lead Medical Oncologist​ Clinician Investigator​
Clinical Research Unit (CCRU)​ Princess Margaret Cancer Centre​
Professor​, Department of Medicine​ University of Toronto​
Toronto, ON​

Dr. Natasha Leighl leads the Thoracic Medical Oncology Group at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and is Professor in the Department of Medicine, and Adjunct Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She holds the OSI Pharmaceuticals Foundation Chair in Cancer New Drug Development through the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.​ After receiving her MD from the University of Toronto, Canada, Dr. Leighl completed residencies in internal medicine at the University of Calgary and in medical oncology at the University of Toronto. She subsequently completed her fellowship in thoracic oncology at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Canada and a fellowship in clinical oncology at the University of Sydney, Australia. She received her Masters in Medical Science (MMSc) in clinical epidemiology at the University of Newcastle, Australia.​ Dr Leighl’s main interest is in developing new treatments in lung cancer and improving lung cancer diagnostics. She is involved in clinical studies of novel agents for the treatment of thoracic cancers, has led several international and cooperative group studies in lung cancer and has served as a member of the Lung Disease Site Group Executive of the Canadian Cancer Clinical Trials Group. She was Co-Chair of the CCTG Committee on Economic Analysis, Congress Co-President of the 2018 WCLC, and serves on multiple committees including the ASCO Thoracic Guidelines Advisory Group, is co-section editor of The Oncologist and Current Oncology, an editorial board member of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, British Journal of Cancer, a member of the IASLC Quality and Value Committee, on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lung Cancer Foundation of America, and was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the Americas Health Foundation.

Steven H. Lin, MD, PhD

Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, Division of Radiation Oncology
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX

Dr. Steven Lin is a Tenured Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Thoracic Radiation Oncology and a Physician-Scientist at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. His practice focuses on thoracic malignancies. He leads clinical trials testing advanced radiation technologies or combining novel agents to enhance the current standard of care. His laboratory is also developing approaches that will enhance traditional cancer therapies. They are using drug screen approaches to identify drugs that could enhance both the cytotoxic effects but also immune stimulatory effects of radiation therapy. He is also interested in approaches to identify drivers of treatment resistance and seek innovative strategies to counterbalance the resistance mechanisms. He is applying candidate gene knockdown or knockout screens to identify immunomodulators or radiation sensitivity modulators. The focus is on clinical translation, taking potential drug candidates, and testing them in preclinical studies to validate the utility of combining radiation sensitizers or immunomodulators with standard-of-care chemoradiotherapy or radiotherapy alone approaches for the management of lung and esophageal cancer. Promising agents are brought to the clinic as investigator-initiated trials.

Billy W. Loo, Jr, MD, PhD, FASTRO, FACR

Professor of Radiation Oncology (Radiation Therapy)
Stanford
Dept Of Radiation Oncology
Stanford Medicine
Stanford CA

Dr. Loo is a Professor of Radiation Oncology, a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute, a member of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS) in the Department of Radiology, and a member of Bio-X in the School of Medicine. He is a physician-scientist Radiation Oncologist and Bioengineer who directs the Thoracic Radiation Oncology Program at Stanford. Dr. Loo received his MD from University of California, Davis and his PhD in Bioengineering from University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley.

He completed his Radiation Oncology residency training at Stanford University. He is certified by the American Board of Radiology in Radiation Oncology and is a Fellow of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and a Fellow of the American College of Radiology (ACR). His clinical specialties are state-of-the-art radiation therapy for lung/thoracic cancers, including stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) and 4-D image-guided radiation therapy for lung tumors.

Dr. Loo is a recognized expert in thoracic cancers serving on multiple national committees (including as writing member or vice-chair) that publish clinical guidelines on the treatment of lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies, particularly the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). His clinical research is in clinical trials and implementation of new treatment techniques for lung cancer, and development of new medical imaging methods for measuring organ function and predicting response to cancer treatment. As part of this work, he leads a clinical and preclinical research program in molecular imaging, particularly using novel PET tracers for tumor hypoxia (EF5), tumor proliferation (FLT), and neuroinflammation (PBR06). He also co-leads clinical trials of novel applications of SABR including treatment of pulmonary emphysema and cardiac arrhythmias.

Patrick Chi-Chung Ma, MD, MSc

Professor, Department of Medicine Interim Chief,
Division of Hematology and Oncology
Associate Director of Translational Research Penn State Cancer Institute
Penn State College of Medicine
Penn State University
Hershey, PA

Dr. Patrick Ma is Professor at the Department of Medicine, Penn State Cancer Institute. He also works as Interim Chief at the Division of Hematology and Oncology and Associate Director of Translational Research at Penn State Cancer Institute, Penn State College of Medicine, Penn State University. Dr. Ma graduated from University of Toronto in 1994, and completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowship in Hematology/Oncology from St. Elizabeth Medical Center and Tufts-New England Medical Center, respectively.

Dr. Ma, along with his colleagues, discovered that c-Met is “overexpressed, activated, and sometimes mutated” in NSCLC. They published for the first time the discovery of MET exon 14 skipping mutations in both SCLC and NSCLC, and demonstrated that genomic alterations impacting the exon 14 encoded juxtamembrane domain of the c-Met receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) are oncogenic and potentially targetable. They also showed that a known c-Met prototype inhibitor called SU11274 could inhibit the viability of NSCLC cells. Dr. Ma is continuing research included a combinational targeting approach to preemptively prevent the emergence of drug-persisting tumor cells and to ultimately overcome acquired drug resistance.

Ranee Mehra, MD

​Professor of Medical Oncology
Director of Head and Neck Medical Oncology Marlene and
Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center
University of Maryland​
 Baltimore, MD

Dr. Mehra, is the Director of Head and Neck Medical Oncology and Professor of Medicine at the Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center. She received her undergraduate degree in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995 and went on to receive her medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine in 1999. Upon completing her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the New York University Langone Medical Center, Dr. Mehra later completed her clinical fellowship in Medical Oncology at Yale University in 2006. She went on to join the faculty at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2006, where she was a clinical investigator for head and neck and thoracic studies.

Prior to joining the Greenebaum Cancer Center, Dr. Mehra was Director of Head and Neck Therapeutics and co-Director of the Upper Aerodigestive Program at Johns Hopkins University. She is a clinical investigator for the treatment of head and neck and thoracic cancers, with immunotherapy and targeted therapies.

Dr. Mehra’s research interests also include incorporation of biomarkers in clinical trial design and developmental therapeutics. Dr. Mehra is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) Head and Neck Committee. She is also a member of the NCI Head and Neck Recurrent/Metastatic Task Force.

Barbara Melosky, MD, FRCP(C)

​Professor of Medicine The University of British Columbia
Medical Oncologist, BC Cancer
Vancouver, BC 

Dr. Melosky is a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia and a medical oncologist at the BC Cancer Center in Vancouver. Dr. Melosky specializes in thoracic malignancies. She is Chair of the Lung Tumour Group for British Columbia. She sits on the Executive Lung Site Committee for Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CTTG). She chairs the annual Canadian Lung Cancer Conference, attended by over 450 participants, for the last 22 years. She is proud to have started and built the British Columbia Lung Cancer Biobank which is actively used for research for all interested. She has published extensively and is considered a national and international expert in thoracic malignancies.

Robert E. Merritt, MD

​Thoracic Surgeon
Professor and Director, Division of Thoracic Surgery
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH

Robert E Merritt, MD is a Professor of Surgery and the Director of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. He also serves as the Medical Director of Inpatient Services as the James Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Merritt graduated from Cornell University School of Medicine in 1998. He completed his general surgery residency at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in 2005. He completed his cardiothoracic surgery residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 2007. He served as an assistant professor in cardiothoracic surgery at the Stanford Hospitals and Clinics from September 2008 to January 2014. He joined Division of Thoracic Surgery at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in January 2014. His clinical interests include robotic surgery for lung cancer and minimally invasive esophagectomy for esophageal cancer. His research interests include outcomes research, racial disparities in surgical care, and identifying unique biomarkers for lung cancer. He has published 121 peer-reviewed articles and 15 book chapters.

Drew Moghanaki, MD, MPH

​Professor and Chief of Thoracic Oncology
UCLA Department of Radiation Oncology Stanley
Iezman and Nancy Stark Endowed
Chair in Thoracic Radiation Oncology Research Staff Physician &
Co-Director, VA Greater Los Angeles Lung Precision Oncology Program
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

Dr. Drew Moghanaki is Professor and Chief of Thoracic Oncology in the UCLA Department of Radiation Oncology where he holds the Stanley Iezman and Nancy Stark Endowed Chair in Thoracic Radiation Oncology Research. He has a dual appointment at the VA where he is a staff physician and co-director of one of VA’s 23 Lung Precision Oncology Programs. He has received over $50 million in funding for national lung cancer research and implementation projects, is the director of the VA Partnership to Increase Access to Lung Screening (VA-PALS), and national co-chair of the VALOR phase III randomized clinical trial evaluating the role of stereotactic radiotherapy as an alternative to surgery for early-stage lung cancer. He is a member, advisor, and chair of multiple committees for national organizations that includes the American Cancer Society, American Society of Radiation Oncology, GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer, and the LUNGevity Foundation.

Ramya Muddasani, DO

Hematology/Oncology Fellow, PGY6, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Duarte, CA

Dr. Muddasani discovered her passion lies in the field of hematology/oncology during her tenure at MD Anderson Cancer Center. As a researcher, “I realized the power of pioneering technologies that can improve upon the existing standard of care. I believe, with the rapid influx of state-of-the-art medicines being added to our arsenal in the battle against cancer, there is hope that we can shift the current paradigm in the decades to come.” Board certified, Dr. Muddasani is now joining City of Hope after training there as a fellow with plans to focus on thoracic malignancies. She chose City of Hope because it is an institution at the forefront of cancer research. Her goals align with their mission of providing phenomenal patient care with access to clinical trials utilizing innovative treatments.

Timothy W. Mullett, MD, MBA, FACS

​Professor, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery University of Kentucky
College of Medicine
Chair, Commission on Cancer American College of Surgeons
Medical Director, Network Operations
University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center Lexington, KY

Dr. Mullett is a Professor of Surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He is the Medical Director at University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center. He graduated from University of Florida College of Medicine​ in 1988. He also completed his residency and fellowship from University of Florida in 1994 and 1996 respectively. In addition to his medical fellowships and residency, Dr. Mullet was commissioned as a U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps as a Captain in 1988, and in 1995 he was promoted to Major and then Lieutenant Colonel in 2004. He served on the 874th Forward Surgical Team in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004.

Dr. Mullett’s research interests include studying quality implementation of lung cancer screening. He is principal investigator of the Kentucky LEADS Collaborative, a portfolio of studies to reduce the burden of lung cancer in Kentucky. For three years, he has been the clinical champion for the L.A.U.N.C.H. Collaborative, working with the NCI, the Federal Communications Commission, Amgen, and other stakeholders to study barriers to cancer care and the impact of limited broadband access.

Claire K. Mulvey, MD

​Assistant Professor Division of Hematology/Oncology
University of California San Francisco
San Francisco CA

Dr. Claire Mulvey is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at University of California San Francisco (UCSF).

She earned her medical degree at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and completed her residency in Internal Medicine and medical oncology fellowship at UCSF. As thoracic medical oncologist, Dr. Mulvey she treats a wide variety of lung cancers. She specializes in lung neuroendocrine cancers, including typical and atypical carcinoid tumors, large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma and small cell lung cancer. The care she provides to her patients is informed by her past experiences as a caregiver during her husband's cancer treatment.

Dr. Mulvey's research centers on developing new treatments for lung neuroendocrine tumors as well as on improving outcomes and quality of life for patients with these cancers.

​Misako Nagasaka, MD

Associate Clinical Professor, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, Orange, CA

Dr. Nagasaka, MD, PhD is an Associate Clinical Professor in Thoracic Oncology for the Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine at the University of California Irvine. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in NYC and fellowship at Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. Her clinical and research interests are in molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy in thoracic malignancies, with a special focus in medical ethics. She has more than 70 publications, abstracts and book chapters including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Oncology and the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. She has experience serving as the site principal investigator (PI) for over 20 interventional trials (and has served as a sub-investigator for several studies) and enjoys collaborating with other researchers across the country and around the world.

Marcelo Vailati Negrao, MD

​Assistant Professor​ Thoracic / Head and Neck Medical Oncology​
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center​
Houston, TX​

Dr. Marcelo Negrao is Assistant Professor, Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He graduated from University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2010 and completed his residency (Internal Medicine) and fellowship (Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology) from University of Sao Paulo Medical School, San Paulo and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center respectively.

Dr. Negrao’s research is focused on KRAS-mutated lung cancer. His team found the KRAS G12C inhibitor adagrasib showed promising activity suppressing cancer growth not only within the lungs but also in brain metastases for patients with KRAS G12C-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Findings from the Phase Ib cohort of the KRYSTAL-1 trial were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. In addition, they also discovered that co-occurring mutations in three tumor suppressor genes – KEAP1, SMARCA4 and CDKN2A – are linked with poor clinical outcomes in patients with KRAS G12C-mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with the KRAS G12C inhibitors adagrasib or sotorasib. The findings were presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2023 and published in Cancer Discovery, 2023.

Eziafa I. Oduah, MD, PhD, MPH

Assistant Professor, Medicine Duke University School of Medicine
Duke University
Durham , NC

Dr Eziafa Oduah is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Duke University, Thoracic Medical Oncology Program. She is a translational and clinical investigator with a focus on immunotherapy in non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Dr Oduah’s research endeavors in TP53 mutated NSCLC paved the way to her current interest on antigen presentation and improving the tumor response to immunotherapy. Dr Oduah obtained her MD from the Rostov State Medical University, Russia and her MPH and PhD from the State University of New York, USA. She completed her clinical training in Internal Medicine at the Berkshire Medical Center, Massachusetts and fellowship training in Hematology and Medical Oncology at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia after which she was recruited to join faculty at Duke. Dr Oduah is a current recipient of the Robert A.Winn Diversity in Clinical Trial Career Development Award.

Michael D. Offin, MD

​Thoracic Oncologist
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre
New York, NY

Dr. Offin is an Assistant Attending Physician in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre. He received his medical degree from Rutgers University- New Jersey Medical School. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and fellowship training in medical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is a board-certified medical oncologist dedicated to caring for people with lung cancer, including non-small cell lung cancer, small cell lung cancer and mesothelioma. His research focuses on using laboratory findings to design clinical trials that further the care of my patients. He aims to bring the discoveries made by their laboratory researchers to the bedside for the benefit of patients and beyond.

Edwin J. Ostrin, MD, PhD

​Assistant Professor, Department of General Internal Medicine,
Division of Internal Medicine
Assistant Professor, Department of Pulmonary Medicine
Division of Internal Medicine
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX

Dr. Ostrin’s research focus in on the early detection, prevention, and treatment of lung cancer. His primary focus is the development and validation of blood-based biomarkers for lung cancer early detection. He is leveraging his broad training to conduct this research through combining translational research involving human samples and clinical data, basic biology utilizing cell culture and animal models, advanced multiomics techniques, and computational biology. He began his training at Baylor College of Medicine, in the Medical Scientist Training Program, where his PhD thesis work examined the gene regulatory networks controlling eye development. He moved on to a residency in Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins, then a fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care at the University of California, San Francisco. While there, he did post-doctoral research with David Erle, where he studied the role of microRNAs in the crosstalk between the airway epithelium and the immune system in asthma.

Dr. Ostrin began his position at MD Anderson in 2013 in the McCombs Institute for the Early Detection and Treatment of Cancer under the mentorship of Samir Hanash, MD, PhD. His group utilizes advanced proteomics, lipidomics, metabolomics, and transcriptomics to study lung carcinogenesis. Their focus is to investigate pathways and processes that may yield novel biomarkers and prognostic indicators as well as new targets for therapy in lung cancer. They combine their lab approaches with access to biospecimens from a broad variety of patient cohorts, which permits careful validation of potential candidates. This includes large population-based cohorts with hundreds of samples collected before the diagnosis of lung cancer. This approach has led to the development and validation a 4-protein biomarker panel, which can accurately refine clinical risk of lung cancer and can help to discriminate benign from malignant pulmonary nodules. They have also conducted a large multi-center trial for biomarker validation in lung cancer screening.

Dr. Ostrin’s clinical time is spent in the pre-diagnostic Suspicion of Cancer Clinic, where he focuses on patients presenting with indeterminate pulmonary nodules. He currently also run a clinical protocol for blood collection on these patients for biomarker discovery and validation to assist in lung cancer diagnosis. They are beginning a parallel protocol to collect blood from all patients presenting to this clinic, with the express purpose of validation blood tests for multi-cancer early detection.

Sandip P. Patel, MD

​Professor, Member Thoracic Oncology, Cancer Immunotherapy Programs Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology
UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center
La Jolla, CA

Sandip Patel, MD is a Professor at UCSD and a Medical Oncologist focusing on early phase clinical trials of immunotherapy and thoracic oncology. He is the leader for the Experimental Therapeutics (Phase 1) Program and Deputy Director for the Center for Precision Immunotherapy at UCSD. He is co-leader of the NRG Developmental Therapeutics Committee and co-leader of the University of California Lung Cancer Consortium.

Sonam Puri, MD

Thoracic Oncologist
Moffitt Cancer Center
Tampa, FL

Dr Sonam Puri MD. serves as a medical oncologist and Clinical Research Medical Director at Moffitt Cancer Center. She is originally from New Delhi, India and earned her medical degree from Pandit B.D Sharma PGIMS Rohtak, Haryana. She then completed her Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, Connecticut and fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute/ University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. ​​ Dr. Puri’s clinical interests involve treating patients with thoracic malignancies including non-small cell and small cell lung cancer. Her research interests include development of clinical trials for patients with thoracic malignancies with emphasis on immunotherapy, targeted therapy, and other novel therapeutics.

Deepa Rangachari, MD

Assistant Professor, Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Attending Physician, Medicine, Medical Oncology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Director of Hematology/Oncology Graduate Medical Education, Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA

Dr. Deepa Rangachari is the Director of Hematology/Oncology Graduate Medical Education and the Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts, where she is also a thoracic medical oncologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She serves as co-leader of the Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH) Thoracic Oncology Clinical Practice Group and member of the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DFHCC) Lung Cancer Program. Her work emphasizes comprehensive care of people with advanced lung cancers, with emphasis on real-world optimization of immune and targeted therapeutics to maximize benefit. She is additionally an alumnus of and coach for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Education Scholars Program and is engaged in leadership and evidence-based innovation within graduate and post-graduate medical education and Hematology/Oncology.  

Sawsan Rashdan, MD

Assistant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas

Sawsan Rashdan, M.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She specializes in treating thoracic malignancies. She is the Director of Thoracic Medical Oncology Clinical Operations. Dr. Rashdan earned her medical degree at the Faculty of Medicine of Damascus University in Syria. She performed her residency in internal medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, where she also completed advanced fellowship training in hematology and oncology. Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in hematology and medical oncology, she joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2016. Dr. Rashdan’s research focuses on lung cancer, and she has published a number of academic articles on the subject. She has received funding to pilot a clinical trial to investigate the role of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) plus osimertinib as first-line treatment in epidermal growth factor receptor-mutated non-small cell lung cancer. Additionally, she is the Division Quality Officer as well as the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the division of hematology and oncology, leading the effort to reduce inequities of health care and increase access of cancer prevention education in minority groups. Dr. Rashdan also spends time teaching the trainees at UTSW, she leads the lung cancer curriculum for the hematology and oncology fellows at Parkland. In addition to mentoring many fellows, residents and medical students. She is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and the Dallas County Medical Society as well as American Muslim Women Physicians Association. She is also a member of several committees including: Supporting Women in Achieving Greatness, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee in the department of internal Medicine at UTSW.

Neal E. Ready, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine, Member of the Duke Cancer Institute Head and Neck Oncologist, Medical Oncologist
Duke Health Duke University
Durham, NC 

Dr. Neal Ready is a thoracic medical oncologist and Professor of Medicine at Duke University. Their research interest is in translational clinical trials with a focus on novel immune therapy and biomarkers for lung cancer. Dr. Ready has been the principal investigator for Duke Cancer Institute, and national co- operative group investigator initiated trials in non-small cell lung cancer, and small cell lung cancer. A particular area of research interest has been studying neoadjuvant immune therapy in non-small cell lung cancer.

Ari J. Rosenberg, MD

​Assistant Professor of Medicine Section of Hematology/Oncology
Department of Medicine
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL

Dr. Rosenberg is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago and his fellowship training in medical oncology and hematology at Northwestern University. He is a medical oncologist and clinical investigator focusing on head and neck cancer. Dr. Rosenberg develops and conducts clinical trials that incorporate novel tissue and blood-based biomarkers, and he has a particular focus on novel therapies and immunotherapeutic strategies, as well as developing multimodality treatment paradigms to reduce treatment-related toxicity.

Julia Rotow, MD

​Medical Oncologist Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ​
Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology ​
Clinical Instructor in Medicine​
Harvard Medical School ​
Boston, MA ​

Dr. Rotow received her MD from the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. She completed her residency training in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and her fellowship training in Hematology/Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. She practices as a thoracic oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where she is and clinical director of the Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. Her research interests include the development of targeted therapies for the treatment of oncogene-driven lung cancer.

Bertrand Routy, MD, PhD

​Associate Professor of Hemato-Oncology
University of Montreal (CHUM)
Scientific Director of the CHUM Microbiome Centre
University of Montreal Research Centre (CRCHUM)
Montreal, QC

Dr. Bertrand Routy MD, PhD is a clinician-scientist and associate professor in the department of hemato-oncology at the CHUM (University of Montreal). Upon his recruitment to the CRCHUM in 2018 after completing his PhD with Pr. Laurence Zitvogel, Dr. Routy quickly established himself as the scientific director of the CHUM Microbiome Centre where he began his work to develop novel microbiome-based therapeutics in oncology.

His work contributed to the discovery of the gut microbiome as a novel prognostic biomarker for immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in various cancers. He characterized the deleterious impact of antibiotic-related gut dysbiosis on ICI outcomes, which led to pivotal changes in clinical oncology practice. Moreover, he demonstrated that modulation of the microbiome by fecal microbiota transplantation, probiotics, and prebiotic supplementation had the potential to circumvent ICI resistance. His team currently leads several microbiota-centered trials in oncology ranging from phase I to phase II trials, with the aim of decreasing primary ICI resistance.

Dr. Routy is internationally recognized as a leader in the microbiome field with more than 17,300 citations including publications in Science, Nature Medicine and Annals of oncology, and h-index of 43. Moreover, his unending commitment to improving immunotherapy responses in cancer patients has led to several awards from prestigious societies, including the FRQS 2023 Junior 2 ranked #1, the Prix de la Relève Scientifique du Québec in 2022 and the 2021 Gairdner Foundation award.

Joshua K. Sabari, MD

​Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine NYU Grossman
School of Medicine
Director, High Reliability Organization Initiative Perlmutter Cancer Center
New York, NY

Dr. Sabari is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Thoracic Medical Oncologist and member of the Phase I Experimental Therapeutics Group in the Department of Medical Oncology at New York University School of Medicine, NYU Langone Health Perlmutter Cancer Center. Dr. Sabari’s research focus includes developing new treatments for people with lung cancers. His goal is to develop biomarker-driven clinical trials that offer patients unprecedented access to novel therapies and personalized treatments.

Ravi Salgia, MD, PhD ​

​Professor and Arthur & Rosalie Kaplan
Chair ​
City of Hope ​
Duarte, CA ​

Dr. Ravi Salgia earned his PhD and medical degree from Loyola University of Chicago. He then pursued an internship and residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Internal Medicine. Upon completion of his residency, he was a clinical oncology fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. James D. Griffin. Dr. Salgia is currently a medical oncologist at the City of Hope Cancer Center and is the Arthur and Rosalie Kaplan Chair in Medical Oncology. He also works collaboratively within the City of Hope Developmental Cancer Therapeutics Program to develop novel therapies for cancer. Dr. Salgia has over 25 years of accomplishments in translational research and the development of targeted therapies to improve the quality of life and survival of cancer patients, especially as related to small cell lung cancer. His laboratory was the first to identify the role of MET in lung cancer and identify the biological functions of MET and hepatocyte growth factor as well as the potential for novel therapeutic inhibition of this pathway. Dr. Salgia is the co-chief editor of the Journal of Carcinogenesis and is on the editorial advisory board of four other journals. He has authored over 375 peer-reviewed articles, reviews and editorials; one book; and over 30 book chapters.​

Andreas Saltos, MD

​Associate Member, Department of Thoracic Oncology​
Clinical Research Medical Director
Department of Thoracic Oncology
Moffitt Cancer Center​
Tampa, FL

Dr. Andreas Saltos is a Medical Oncologist and the Clinical Research Medical Director in the Department of Thoracic Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center. Dr. Saltos earned his MD from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. He completed his Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore before moving to Tampa, where he completed a Hematology and Medical Oncology Fellowship at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine and Moffitt Cancer Center.

Dr. Saltos specializes in the treatment of thoracic malignancies, including all forms and stages of lung cancer. In his clinical practice he strives to match patients with the optimal treatments that are tailored to their specific cancer and individual needs. The ability to work with an incredible cancer team and apply the latest advances to treat patients in the clinic is what makes him excited to work at Moffitt. He also dedicates a significant portion of his effort to research. His focus is in clinical research aiming to find better treatments for lung cancers, including using new strategies for targeted therapy and immunotherapy. He is currently leading and developing clinical trials investigating novel drugs or treatment combinations which either target the specific genetic features of lung cancers or recruit the immune system to combat cancer.

Rafael Santana-Davila, MD

Associate Professor, Division of Hematology and Oncology, University of Washington Associate Professor, Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Medical Director, Infusion and Pharmacy Services, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA

Rafael Santana-Davila, M.D., is a board certified physician at UWMC-Roosevelt and a UW associate professor of Medicine and Oncology. He graduated from Universidad Anahuac, Mexico City in 2001 and completed his residency and fellowship from University of Minnesota Medical School and Mayo Clinic in 2006 and 2010, respectively. Dr. Santana-Davila is a medical oncologist who specializes in treating patients with lung, head and neck cancers. His wide-ranging research interests include health services research, where his main goal is to understand how to bring the latest advances to patients who can’t access cancer care at specialized centers. Dr. Santana-Davila also has an interest in using new agents for the treatment of lung cancer and is very active in Fred Hutch developmental therapeutics and Phase 1 clinic.

Jennifer L. Sauter, MD

Associate Member, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Associate Attending Pathologist, Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases New York, NY 

Dr. Jennifer Sauter is an Associate Attending Pathologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with Thoracic pathology subspecialty expertise. Her main academic interest is in plueral mesothelioma. She was the lead author of the Diffuse Pleural Mesothelioma section of the 2021 World Health Organization Classification of Thoracic Tumors. She is a current member of the mesothelioma sub committee of the IASLC staging committee. She also served as the Lead pathologist in the upcoming ASCO update for the treatment of mesothelioma.

Nan Sethakorn, MD

Assistant Professor, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL

Dr. Sethakorn is a physician-scientist focusing on the treatment of patients with lung cancer. She graduated from University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine and completed her residency (Internal Medicine) and Fellowship (Hematology/Oncology) from University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics. Dr. Sethakorn’s research focuses on developing patient-specific tumor-on-chip models incorporating human tumor microenvironments (TME) to evaluate novel drug therapies and predictive biomarkers in lung cancer, with an emphasis on studying the TME in bone metastases. She uses patient-derived cancer organoids (PDCOs), human primary stromal cells, and cancer cell lines in 3D microfluidic devices to investigate how bone stromal cells affect functional and molecular responses to targeted drug therapies. To interrogate whether findings in their chip can translate to clinical use, her team employs a semi-automated circulating tumor cell (CTC) enrichment platform to assess global molecular changes, identify tumor heterogeneity, and advance biomarker discovery in lung cancer. Her overall goal is to identify stromal-mediated mechanisms of resistance and develop new strategies to address treatment-refractory lung cancer.

Lynette M. Sholl, MD

Chief, Thoracic Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Associate Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

Dr. Lynette Sholl is an Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Chief of Thoracic Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine in 2003 and completed her residency and fellowship from Brigham and Women's Hospital in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Dr. Sholl’s research focuses on identifying pathologic, immunohistochemical, and genetic markers that will improve the classification of lung cancer, provide predictive information regarding therapy, and provide more precise prognostic information. With the advent of high-throughput next-generation sequencing technologies, she is engaged in translation of novel observations surrounding tumors.

Charles B. Simone, II, MD, FASTRO, FACRO

Research Professor and Chief Medical Officer, New York Proton Center Member, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

Charles B. Simone, II, MD, FASTRO, FACRO is Research Professor and Chief Medical Officer of the New York Proton Center. He is also a Full Member in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is an internationally recognized expert in proton therapy and SBRT to treat thoracic malignancies, in reirradiation, and in developing innovative clinical trial strategies in thoracic oncology. He was previously Chief of the Thoracic Oncology Service, Director of the Penn Mesothelioma and Pleural Program, and Director of Clinical Research and Operations in Radiation Oncology at University of Pennsylvania. He then became Medical Director of Maryland Proton Treatment Center. At Maryland, he was also Chair of the Clinical Research Committee for their Comprehensive Cancer Center, proton therapy Fellowship Director, and Director of Stereotactic Radiation Therapy. He completed his undergraduate and medical training at UPenn and radiation oncology residency at NCI/NIH, where he was chief resident. Dr. Simone is an NIH, National Science Foundation, and DOD-funded investigator who has published >585 peer-reviewed scientific articles/chapters, given >500 national/international scientific lectures. He is the national Principal Investigator or Co-Chair of 8 NIH-funded cooperative group trials (5 NRG Oncology, 1 SWOG, 1 ECOG-ACRIN, 1 PCG). He is a three-time winner of the Association of Residents in Radiation Oncology Educator of the Year Award. Dr. Simone is the Proton Collaborative Group (PCG) Board of Directors President. He Chairs: PCG Lung Committee; NRG Oncology Particle Therapy Work Group; American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Lung Resource Panel Committee; ASTRO Blue Ribbon Lung Panel; American Radium Society Appropriate Use Criteria Thoracic Committee; American College of Radiation Oncology Scientific Program Committee; Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group Gastrointestinal Subcommittee; NCI/Radiosurgery Society GRID-Lattice-Microbeam-Flash Radiotherapy Clinical Working Group; FlashForward Consortium Clinical Committee; and Varian Proton Connect Users Group. He is Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Palliative Medicine.

Luana Sousa, MD

​Assistant Professor Thoracic Head and Neck Medical Oncology
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX

Dr. Sousa serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Her professional commitment is exclusively directed towards treating patients with Head and Neck malignancies, while her research endeavors are dedicated to advancing the field. Dr. Sousa has been honored with two prestigious awards in 2022: The Young Investigator Award (Conquer Cancer – ASCO) and the Pilot Grant (American Head and Neck Society). These accolades aim to deepen our understanding of the tumor microenvironment in HNSCC, integrating both clinical and genomic aspects. Her primary research focus lies in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and salivary gland cancers, and her work has been published in esteemed scientific journals such as Clinical Cancer Research, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and JITC.

In her collective efforts, Dr. Sousa’s overarching goal is to concentrate on the clinical development of innovative therapeutic strategies and novel methods for predicting and evaluating treatment effects. This pursuit is fueled by a comprehensive understanding of disease biology and bidirectional translational research, seamlessly moving from bench to bedside and back. Through these endeavors, Dr. Sousa aims to make significant contributions to the advancement of personalized cancer therapy for patients with head and neck cancers. cancers or recruit the immune system to combat cancer.

Rajat Thawani, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine Section of Hematology/Oncology
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL

Dr. Rajat Thawani is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the section of hematology/oncology at the University Of Chicago. His interests include translational oncology and clinical trials. He works on resistance to treatment in lung cancer, treatment of cancer and non-smokers and global oncology.

Dr. Rajat grew up in New Delhi, India, where he went to medical school. He completed his hematology and medical oncology fellowship at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon, where he was chief fellow.

Anne S. Tsao, MD

​Professor, Thoracic Section Chief
Director, Thoracic Chemo-Radiation
Program Director, Mesothelioma Program Clinical
Medical Director, Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology
Division of Cancer Medicine
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX

Anne S. Tsao, MD, is a professor in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC). She is the director of the Mesothelioma Program and the director of the Thoracic Chemo-Radiation Program at MDACC. She is a clinician-scientist and an expert in the treatment of patients with both thoracic and head and neck cancers. Dr. Tsao earned her medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She completed her internship and residency at Indiana University in Indiana and an additional fellowship at the University of Texas MDACC.

Dr Tsao has performed studies involving smoking history and its impact on the prognosis of those with non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC). She leads a multi-disciplinary program at MDACC for local-regionally advanced NSCLC with a focus on incorporating immunotherapies into this setting. In articles in publications such as Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dr Tsao has discussed the impact of novel therapies, the importance of clinical trials, and controversial issues such as the use of extra-pleural pneumonectomy in the treatment of the disease. She has also campaigned for the use of immunotherapy for the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma. She has also received numerous awards, including an ASCO Merit Award, MD Anderson Achievement in Research Award, ASCO Young Investigator Award, ASCO Career Development Award, NIH Clinician Scientist K12 Award, and Head and Neck SPORE Career Development Award.

Eric Vallières, MD FRCSC

​Medical Director, Division of Thoracic Surgery
Swedish Cancer Institute
Seattle, Washington

Dr. Vallières is the Medical Director Division of Thoracic Surgery at the Swedish Cancer Institute in Seattle. He received his MD from L’Université Laval in Canada. Following an internship in Québec City, he trained in General Surgery at the University of Toronto where he also completed a General Thoracic Surgery Residency. Following a fellowship with Professeur Couraud in Bordeaux, France, he joined the Department of Surgery at the University of Alberta Edmonton in 1991, then the University of Ottawa in 1994. He was recruited in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Washington Seattle in 1996 where he remained as an Associate Professor until 2004, before taking over the leadership of Thoracic Surgery at the Swedish Cancer Institute.

Dr. Vallières was Vice-Chairman of the Lung Committee with SWOG from 1998 to 2008. He sat on the Staging and Membership Committees of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. His main interests are the combined modality approaches to thoracic malignancies, adjuvant therapy after lung cancer surgery and clinical trials in thoracic oncology. He was the surgical PI of the S9900 Intergroup phase III trial which evaluated the role of pre-operative chemotherapy in lung cancer. Since 1997, he has led the combined modality efforts to the treatment of mesothelioma in Seattle and in the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. Vallières has editorial responsibilities at the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Clinical Lung Cancer, Chest, Lung Cancer, Annals of Surgical Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology and New England Journal of Medicine. His bibliography includes over 160 published articles and 50 book chapters.

​Victoria M. Villaflor, MD 

Professor of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics Research, Section Chief, Head & Neck Oncology, Department of Medical Oncology & Therapeutics Research, City of Hope, Duarte, CA

Victoria Villaflor, M.D. is board-certified medical oncologist specializing in upper aerodigestive tract malignancies, including head and neck and thoracic malignancies. She is a Professor and Section Chief for Head & Neck Oncology in the Department of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics Research at City of Hope in Duarte, California. Dr. Villaflor has 20 years of experience in leading clinical trials, translational science and working in multidisciplinary teams. Her background is in microbiology and immunology and her primary interests are focused on improving patient survival and improving outcomes. She has led numerous studies to optimize chemoradiotherapy and improve outcomes. Additionally, she has developed and lead multiple novel clinical trials focused on oncogene exploitation and immunomodulatory approaches for upper aerodigestive malignancies. She has vast experience in translational science. Her team was the first to publish on the use of circulating tumor DNA in lung cancer patients.  She has led efforts in characterization of molecular targets on outcomes following surgery. She has worked with scientists evaluating the role of IDO-1 in outcomes of esophageal cancer patients. She is most passionate in personalized therapies and how to best optimize their use in clinical practice to ultimately improve both survival and toxicity outcomes in patients. Dr. Villaflor has extensive experience and has served on many international grant and research committees. She has been a member of the scientific committee and IRB. She has served as a reviewer for numerous journals. She has served on international education committees.

Saiama Naheed Waqar, MBBS, MSCI

Professor of Medicine, Division of Oncology, Department of Medicine, Research Director for Thoracic Oncology, Director of Education for Oncology,  Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, Missouri

Dr. Saiama Waqar is a Professor of Medicine, Director of Education for Oncology and Research Director for Thoracic Oncology in the Division of Oncology, Department of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis Missouri. She is a clinical trialist with an interest in personalized therapies for patients with thoracic malignancies.

Hideo Watanabe, MD, PhD

Associate Professor, Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Associate Professor, Genetics and Genomic Sciences Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY

Hideo Watanabe, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine and Associate Professor, Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He completed his medical degree, internal medicine residency and pulmonology fellowship in Keio University School of Medicine in Japan. During his clinical training in pulmonology, he cared for many lung cancer patients confronting the end-stages of their diseases. This led him to pursue research training, where he studied the role of epigenetic modification in the growth of lung cancer cells at Graduate School of Medicine in Keio University. After witnessing the emergence of a new paradigm of targeted therapeutics led by genome discoveries in cancer, he went on to train at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Broad Institute. Dr. Watanabe joined faculty in Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to establish a highly collaborative program that utilizes functional genomics and state-of-the-art technologies to characterize various cellular lineages in normal lung as well as in lung cancer subtypes, and identify and elucidate the mechanism of the lineage programs that are aberrantly fixated in lung cancer. Dr. Watanabe’s primary interest is to understand the transcriptional programs of lung cancer. His group uses functional genomics technologies including RNA sequencing and ChIP sequencing combined with single cell genome technologies to characterize lineage programs governing lung cancers.

Paul Wheatley-Price, BSc, MBChB, FRCP(UK), MD

Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa Staff Medical Oncologist and Clinician Investigator, Division of Medical Oncology, The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, Ottawa, ON

Dr. Paul Wheatley-Price is Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, and a medical oncologist at The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, specializing in the treatment of thoracic malignancies and carcinoma of unknown primary. He is the medical oncology lead for the lung cancer disease site group, and is the current Program Director for the medical oncology training program. From 2016 - 2021 Dr. Wheatley-Price served as President of Lung Cancer Canada, and he remains active in lung cancer advocacy. Dr. Wheatley-Price attended medical school in the UK, at the University of St. Andrews (1991-1994) and the University of Manchester (1994 - 1997). He received specialist medical oncology training in Wellington, New Zealand, in London at the Royal Free Hospital, Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospitals and St. George’s Hospital, and as a Fellow in Lung Cancer Research at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto. He has been in Ottawa since 2009.

Terence Williams, MD, PhD

​Professor and Chair, Department of Radiation Oncology, City of Hope, National Medical Center, Duarte, CA 

Terence M. Williams, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor and the chair for the Department of Radiation Oncology at City of Hope Medical Center. Dr. Williams specializes in treating patients with thoracic and gastrointestinal cancers, with an emphasis on non small cell lung, pancreatic and hepatobiliary malignancies. Dr. Williams received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and completed his residency in radiation oncology and internship in internal medicine at University of Michigan Medical Center. He has a National Institutes of Health-funded research laboratory and has received numerous funding and awards from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, American Society of Radiation Oncology, American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Cancer Society and the Radiologic Society of North America. He also serves as a permanent member of the National Institutes of Health Radiation Therapeutics and Biology study section, vice-chair of American Society for Radiation Oncology biology scientific programs and serves on numerous committees for NRG Oncology and Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. His research interests are in stereotactic body radiation therapy, experimental therapeutics, radiogenomics, DNA repair, radiobiology, nutrient scavenging and theranostics.

Ignacio I Wistuba, MD

​Professor and Chair, Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, Division of Pathology/Lab Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Faculty, University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, TX 

Ignacio I. Wistuba, MD, is the Chair of the Department of Translational Molecular Pathology with Joint appointment in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, and co-director of the Khalifa Institute of Personalized Cancer Institute at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is also the director of the Thoracic Molecular Pathology Laboratory, director of the UT Lung Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) Tissue Bank, director of the ECOG-ACRIN (Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group-American College of Radiology Imaging Network) Central Biorepository and Pathology Facility, pathologist for the SWOG Lung Cancer Committee and the Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium, co-director of the pre-CLIA Genomic Testing Developmental Laboratory. He is associate editor of Annals of Oncology and Cancer Prevention Research. Dr. Wistuba’s major research interest is the elucidation of the molecular abnormalities involved in the pathogenesis and progression of lung cancer and other solid tumors. He has co-authored over 700 papers in peer-reviewed journal and several book chapters. His research interests also include identifying new molecular targets, validating biomarkers for targeted therapy and immunotherapy, and identifying molecular markers associated with lung cancer and other solid tumors development, progression and metastasis development using annotated human specimens. He is principal investigator (PI) and co-PI on several molecular pathology and biomarker projects supported by multi-investigators and multi-institutional grants, and research agreements, including MD Anderson NCI Cancer Center Support Grants Tissue Bank and Pathology Resource, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Multi- Investigators Research Awards, two NCI-U24 grants supporting the ECOG-ACRIN Central Biorepository and Pathology Facility and the MD Anderson Center Immune Monitoring and Analysis Center (CIMAC). 

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