Kenneth C. Anderson, M.D.

Chief, Division of Hematologic Neoplasia
Director, James Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center
Kraft Family Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Anderson graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School, trained in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and completed hematology, medical oncology, and tumor immunology training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School; and serves as Chief of the Division of Hematologic Neoplasia, Director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center, and Vice Chair of the Joint Program in Transfusion Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He serves as chair of the NCCN Multiple Myeloma Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee; as a Cancer and Leukemia Group B Principal Investigator; on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the International Myeloma Foundation; on the Board of Directors and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation; as well as on the Board of Directors and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium. He has published more than 300 original articles, 200 chapters, and has edited multiple textbooks on multiple myeloma and on transfusion medicine. He is a Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Research Scientist and has had long term RO-1, PO-1, and SPORE NIH funding. His numerous awards including the 2001 Charles C. Lund Award of the American Red Cross Blood Services, the 2003 Waldenstroms award for research in plasma cell dyscrasias, the 2004 Johnson & Johnson Focused Giving Award for Setting New Directions in Science and Technology, and the 2005 the Robert A. Kyle Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2007 American Association for Cancer Research Joseph H. Burchenal Award for Clinical Research.

Over the last two decades, he has focused his translational research studies on B cell malignancies, especially multiple myeloma. Highlights of his contributions to science and medicine include: discovery of the first plasma cell reactive monoclonal antibodies; development of an immunophenotyping model for diagnosis and treatment of B cell malignancies; pioneering novel methods to improve safety and efficacy of autografting and allografting in myeloma; characterizing the signaling cascades whereby cytokines mediate myeloma cell growth, survival, and drug resistance in the bone marrow microenvironment; using oncogenomics and developing in vitro and in vivo models to both identify novel targets and validate therapies targeting the myeloma cell and its bone marrow milieu; translating these preclinical studies to the bedside in derived phase 1-3 clinical trials; and establishing a new treatment paradigm using novel therapies targeting the tumor cell, tumor-host bone marrow interaction, and bone marrow microenvironment to overcome drug resistance and improve patient outcome in myeloma. He led both preclinical and clinical trials of the novel proteasome inhibitor Bortezomib, as well as thalidomide and its immunomodulatory derivative lenalidomide, culminating in the rapid FDA approval of these agents for treatment of myeloma. Therefore his paradigm for identifying and validating targets in the tumor cell and its milieu has already provided novel therapies in myeloma, and offers great promise to improve patient outcome in hematologic malignancies and solid tumors as well.

Recent Awards
Robert A. Kyle Lifetime Achievement Award, 2005

John C Byrd, MD

Dr. Byrd is a professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Chemistry within The Ohio State University Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy . He leads the Hematological Malignancies Program within the Department's Division of Hematology and Oncology. He is a member of the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center,s Experimental Therapeutics Program, and he also holds the D. Warren Brown Professorship of Leukemia Research. Dr. Byrd's research focuses on the causes of and clinical treatments for leukemias and lymphomas, including monoclonal antibody therapies. His clinical practice is focused on the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Lee M. Ellis, M.D.

Professor of Surgery and Cancer Biology
William C. Liedtke, Jr., Chair in Cancer Research
Chair, Ad Interim, Dept of Cancer Biology
UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

Lee M. Ellis, MD, graduated from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1983, and completed his residency in surgery at the University of Florida in 1990. Dr. Ellis went on to complete a surgical oncology fellowship at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), where he has been on the faculty since 1993. He has a dual appointment as a Professor in the departments of Surgical Oncology and Cancer Biology. Dr. Ellis has a clinical practice in Surgical Oncology, focused on patients with colorectal cancer and liver metastases. Academically, Dr. Ellis has established a reputation for expertise in the area of angiogenesis and growth factor receptors in gastrointestinal malignancies and is funded by several grants for research in this area. He has served on numerous NIH study sections and is a consultant to the National Cancer Institute. In 2000, Dr. Ellis was awarded the Faculty Scholar Award from the MDACC, and he was also the inaugural recipient of a grant from the George and Barbara Bush Endowment for Innovative Cancer Research. In 2007, he was awarded the William C. Liedtke, Jr., Chair in Cancer Research. Dr. Ellis serves on 8 editorial boards, including the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Research and Clinical Cancer Research (Senior Editor). Dr. Ellis has also authored over 190 peer-reviewed publications, 90 invited reviews and editorials, three books, and 30 book chapters. In addition, he has published important editorials in journals such as the NEJM, Cell, Nature, Cancer Cell, Nature Medicine, JNCI, JCO, and The Lancet. He is co-chair of the largest clinical angiogenesis meeting in the world held in Jan/Feb annually. Dr. Ellis serves in a leadership role in the major cancer societies such as the American Society for Clinical Oncology, American Association for Cancer Research, Keystone Scientific Symposia and the Society for Surgical Oncology. He was chair of the 2007 GI Cancers Symposium and is co-chair of the 2009 AACR annual meeting. Dr. Ellis also recently Chaired a Keystone Symposium on Angiogenesis, held January, 2009. In June 2008, he was appointed Chair, Ad Interim, Department of Cancer Biology at MDACC.

Peter J. O'Dwyer, MD

Director, Developmental Therapeutics Program, Abramson Cancer Center
University Of Pennsylvania

Dr. O'Dwyer is a Professor of Medicine in the Hematology-Oncology division at the University of Pennsylvania. He serves as the Program Leader of the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania. His clinical expertise is in the area of GI cancer with special expertise in colon/pancreas cancer and new therapies in early clinical trials. He serves the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group as Vice-Chair, and Associate Chair of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Committee. His research interests lie in novel targeted therapies for cancer, and resistance to conventional treatments.
 

Professor Gordon J.S. Rustin, MD, MSc, FRCP

Director, Department of Medical Oncology
Mount Vernon Centre for Cancer Treatment

Professor Rustin is Director of Medical Oncology at Mount Vernon Hospital, which is the largest cancer centre in the South of England. He has published widely on management of gynecological cancers and germ cell tumors and the use of tumor markers. He has developed response criteria on CA125, which are now increasingly used in Phase II trials of ovarian cancer. He has recently been the chief investigator of four trials of vascular disruptive agents as well as several trials in ovarian and germ cell cancer. He was awarded an Honorary Professorship by University College London in March 2001 and a Visiting Professorship by the University of Hertfordeshire in 2006.