AACR Welcomes New Members to the Board of Directors and Nominating Committee

PHILADELPHIA — The members of the American Association for Cancer Research will welcome Charles L. Sawyers, M.D., as president-elect 2012-2013 on Monday, April 2, at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012, held in Chicago, Ill. from March 31 – April 4.

Sawyers is chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Additionally, he is a professor in the Cell and Developmental Biology Program and the Department of Medicine at the Joan & Sanford Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University. He will serve for one year as AACR president, beginning in April 2013.

“Dr. Sawyers is a tremendous asset to the AACR and the cancer research community. His extraordinary experience in translational and clinical research will be extremely valuable to the AACR as we continue to accelerate the translation of exciting basic research for the benefit of cancer patients. The AACR is excited to welcome him on board,” said Margaret Foti, Ph.D., M.D. (h.c.), chief executive officer of the AACR.

Sawyers’ vision statement for his term emphasized his great concern about the federal budget for cancer research and his desire to work with the AACR and its members to raise awareness among its nation’s political leaders and general public about the importance to public health.

“We must educate our leaders, and the public, that this is absolutely the wrong time to compromise on cancer research funding,” he said. “Our voices must be heard, and the American Association for Cancer Research is uniquely poised to coordinate on this outcry. It is time to bring this issue to the forefront through a highly coordinated, worldwide plan to ‘occupy’ cancer research.” (Read more about Charles L. Sawyers, M.D.)

In addition, the members have elected five distinguished scientists to serve on the AACR Board of Directors for the 2012 to 2015 term: Kenneth C. Anderson, M.D., Ph.D. (hon.); Lewis C. Cantley, Ph.D.; Michelle M. Le Beau, Ph.D.; Benjamin G. Neel, M.D., Ph.D.; and Karen H. Vousden, Ph.D.

Kenneth C. Anderson, M.D., Ph.D. (hon.), is the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine, vice chair of the Joint Program in Transfusion Medicine and research associate of the Center for Blood Research at Harvard Medical School. Anderson is also the director of the Lebow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics, director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center, medical director of the Blood Component Laboratory, attending physician of the Bone Marrow Transplantation Service, associate professor of medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, associate medical director at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Blood Bank and an associate physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Mass.

He currently serves as a member of the AACR’s Science Policy and Legislative Affairs Committee, the Task Force on Regulatory Science and Policy and the Clinical and Translational Cancer Research Committee. Anderson has served as co-chairperson of the AACR Annual Meeting Program Committee, co-chairperson and member of the Scientific Program Committee for the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics and a member of the Team Science Award Committee. He is an editorial board member for Molecular Cancer Therapeutics and is editor-in-chief of Clinical Cancer Research, both of which are journals of the AACR.

Lewis C. Cantley, Ph.D., is director of the Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center in Boston, Mass., professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Signal Transduction at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Cantley currently serves as co-editor-in-chief for the AACR’s newest journal, Cancer Discovery, along with Jose Baselga, M.D., Ph.D. He is a member of the AACR’s Council of Scientific Advisors, the Special Conferences Committee and the Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Cancer Research Committee, and was a member of the AACR Outstanding Achievement Award for Breast Cancer Research Committee. Cantley served as a member and co-chairperson of the Annual Meeting Program Committee and the Scientific Committee of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics. He was chairperson of the Kirk A. Landon-AACR Prize for Basic Cancer Research Committee, co-chairperson of the special conference Targeting the PI3-Kinase Pathway in Cancer and co-chairperson of the AACR-ASH Workshop on PI3-Kinase: A Common Pathway for Hematologic Malignancies and Solid Tumors.

He is the leader of the Stand Up To Cancer Dream Team: “Targeting the PI3K Pathway”; Sawyers, newly elected president-elect of the AACR, is the co-leader of this initiative. AACR is a scientific partner of Stand Up To Cancer.

Michelle M. Le Beau, Ph.D., is the Arthur and Marian Edelstein Professor in the department of medicine, section of hematology/oncology, director of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center and director of the Cancer Cytogenetics Laboratory at the University of Chicago.

Le Beau is a member of the AACR’s Science Policy and Legislative Affairs Committee and has previously served as a member of the AACR-Women in Cancer Research Charlotte Friend Memorial Lectureship Committee, the Publications Committee and the Kirk A. Landon-AACR Prize for Basic Cancer Research Committee. She is vice president of the Association of American Cancer Institutes.

Benjamin G. Neel, M.D., Ph.D., is director of the Ontario Cancer Institute at University Health Network, which includes The Campbell Family Cancer Research Institute at Princess Margaret Hospital. He is also a professor in the department of medical biophysics at the University of Toronto and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in signal transduction and disease.

Neel is the AACR Annual Meeting 2012 Committee chairperson and a scientific editor for Cancer Discovery. His other involvement with the AACR includes: chairperson and member on the Annual Meeting Program Committee, and a member of the Scientific Review Committee for the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics and the Laboratory Research Awards Committee. He also served as an editorial board member of Cell Growth and Differentiation.

Karen H. Vousden, Ph.D., is director of the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow, Scotland.

She is currently a scientific editor for Cancer Discovery, a co-chairperson of the Annual Meeting Program Committee and a Steering Committee member of the Council of Scientific Advisors. She is also a member of Molecular Cancer Research’s editorial board and a member of the AACR’s International Affairs Committee. Vousden has served as a member on the following AACR committees: Annual Meeting Education Committee, Kirk A. Landon-AACR Prize for Basic Cancer Research Committee, the Task Force on Aging and Cancer and the Scientific Review Committee of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics.

On Monday, April 2, at 12:30 p.m. CT, during the AACR Annual Meeting Business Meeting, the AACR leadership will induct Frank McCormick, Ph.D., F.R.S., D.Sc. (hon.), as president of the AACR.

McCormick is the director of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. He holds the E. Dixon Heise distinguished professorship in oncology and the David A. Wood distinguished professorship of tumor biology and cancer research at UCSF. Additionally, he is the associate dean of the UCSF School of Medicine and a distinguished professor in residence in the department of microbiology and immunology as well as in the department of biochemistry and biophysics.

McCormick will succeed Judy E. Garber, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and associate physician of medicine and attending physician of medical service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass.

Garber served with distinction as AACR president for the 2011 to 2012 term and will assume the role of past-president (2012-2013).

In addition, the following renowned scientists have been elected to serve as members of the Nominating Committee for the 2012 to 2014 term: Chi Van Dang, M.D., Ph.D.; Susan Band Horwitz, Ph.D.; Matthew L. Meyerson, M.D., Ph.D.; and Martine F. Roussel, Ph.D.

Chi Van Dang, M.D., Ph.D., is director of the Abramson Cancer Center and the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. He is also a professor of medicine and the John H. Glick professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

He is currently a scientific editor of Cancer Discovery, an editorial board member for Cancer Research and a member of the Publications Committee and the Science Education Committee. He has served as a co-chairperson for the special conference Pancreatic Cancer: Advances and Challenges and the Annual Meeting Program Committee, a member of the AACR Team Science Award Committee, a session chairperson for the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics and as senior editor and associate editor for Cancer Research.

Susan Band Horwitz, Ph.D., is the Distinguished University Professor and co-chair in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology, and associate director for therapeutics at the Albert Einstein Cancer Center in New York, N.Y. She is also the Rose C. Falkenstein professor of cancer research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y.

Horwitz is an AACR past president and currently serves as a member on the Council of Scientific Advisors. She was a chairperson of the AACR’s Translational Cancer Medicine Meeting; co-chairperson of the educational workshop Translational Cancer Research for Basic Scientists, the Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Cancer Research Committee and the AACR International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development; and served as faculty for the Scientist↔Survivor Program at the AACR 2009 Annual Meeting. She was a member on numerous AACR committees and the Board of Directors.

Matthew L. Meyerson, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School, director of the Center for Cancer Genome Discovery and professor of pathology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Mass.

Meyerson is currently a member on the AACR Special Conferences Committee and the 2012 Annual Meeting Education Committee, and is a scientific editor for Cancer Discovery. He has served as a co-chairperson or chairperson for the AACR-Japanese Cancer Association Joint Conference, Cancer Genomics, Epigenomics and the Development of Novel Therapeutics; the AACR International Conference on New Horizons in Cancer Research: Biology to Prevention to Therapy; and the AACR International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Joint Conference, The Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer.

Martine F. Roussel, Ph.D., is a full member in the departments of genetics and tumor cell biology, co-chair of the Cancer Center Signal Transduction Program and endowed chair in molecular oncogenesis at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and is a professor in the department of molecular sciences at the University of Tennessee in Memphis, Tenn.

Roussel is currently an editorial board member of Molecular Cancer Research. She has served as a chairperson and member of the AACR-Women in Cancer Research Charlotte Friend Memorial Lectureship Committee, co-chairperson and member of the Annual Meeting Program Committee and chairperson of the G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award Committee. Roussel was a member of the Laboratory Research Awards Committee, the Scientific Review Committee of the AACR International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development, the Annual Meeting Education Committee and the Kirk A. Landon-AACR Prize for Basic Cancer Research Committee, and served as an editorial board member and associate editor for Cancer Research.

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About the AACR

Founded in 1907, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is the world’s first and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research and its mission to prevent and cure cancer. AACR’s membership includes 34,000 laboratory, translational and clinical researchers; population scientists; other health care professionals; and cancer advocates residing in more than 90 countries. The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise of the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, biology, diagnosis and treatment of cancer by annually convening more than 20 conferences and educational workshops, the largest of which is the AACR Annual Meeting with more than 18,000 attendees. In addition, the AACR publishes seven peer-reviewed scientific journals and a magazine for cancer survivors, patients and their caregivers. The AACR funds meritorious research directly as well as in cooperation with numerous cancer organizations. As the Scientific Partner of Stand Up To Cancer, the AACR provides expert peer review, grants administration and scientific oversight of individual and team science grants in cancer research that have the potential for patient benefit. The AACR actively communicates with legislators and policy makers about the value of cancer research and related biomedical science in saving lives from cancer.  

For more information about the AACR, visit www.AACR.org.

Media Contact:
Tara Yates
(215) 446-7110
Tara.Yates@aacr.org
In Chicago, March 31 – April 4:
(312) 528-8206

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