A research lab at Baylor Institute for Immunology Research has been named in honor of Ralph M. Steinman, MD, the Nobel Prize-winning cell biologist who discovered dendritic cells in the 1970s, and was the Henry G. Kunkel Professor at Rockefeller University until his death from pancreatic cancer last year, just three days before the announcement of his winning the award with Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffman.
Karolina Palucka, MD, PhD, the Michael A.E. Ramsay Chair for Cancer Immunology Research at Baylor, will be researching pancreatic cancer treatments at the lab she decided to rename to honor her friend and colleague.
"Ralph's research has laid the foundation for numerous discoveries in the critically important field of immunology, and it has led to innovative new approaches in how we treat cancer, infectious diseases, and disorders of the immune system," Rockefeller University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, PhD, said in a statement on the university's website.
Paul Jacobsen, PhD, has been appointed the Moffitt Cancer Center's new Associate Center Director for Population Science. He has been at Moffitt since 1994, directing clinical and research programs in psychosocial oncology, and more recently he has been the program leader and department chair of Health Outcomes & Behavior and director of the Survey Methods Core.
Also at Moffitt, Thomas Brandon, PhD, was appointed the new Chair and Program Leader for Health Outcomes & Behavior; Anna Giuliano, PhD, was appointed Director of the Center for Infection Research in Cancer; and Kathleen Egan, ScD, was appointed Interim Program Leader of Cancer Epidemiology.
Wistar Institute Cancer Center has created a new research program, Tumor Microenvironment and Metastasis, which marks Wistar's shifting research efforts. "Formalizing the program will dedicate scientific and financial resources to moving our discoveries from the research bench to the patient's bedside as quickly as possible," Dario C. Altieri, MD, Director of the Wistar Institute Cancer Center and the Robert and Penny Fox Distinguished Professor, said in a statement.
Jose Conejo-Garcia, MD, PhD, has been appointed the program's leader with co-leader Meenhard Herlyn, DVM, PhD. In further reorganization, the following appointments have been made:
* Maureen Murphy, PhD, will be the new molecular and cellular oncogenesis program leader with David Speicher, PhD as co-program leader.
* Ronen Mar-morstein, PhD, the Hilary Koprowski Professor, will remain leader of the gene expression and regulation program.
* Luis Montaner, DVM, PhD, will be Associate Director for Shared Facilities.
* Nicholas J. Petrelli, MD, Medical Director of the Helen Graham Cancer Center in Delaware, joins Wistar as an adjunct faculty member and has been named to the newly created role of Associate Director for Translational Research for Wistar. A news release notes that this leadership appointment strengthens a newly formed partnership between Wistar and the NCI-designated Helen Graham Center to facilitate active clinician-scientist collaborations and promote the translation of Wistar discoveries to benefit cancer patients.
Janet Rowley, MD, the Blum-Riese Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology and Human Genetics of the University of Chicago, Brian Druker, MD, Director of the Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute, and Nicholas Lydon, PhD, Founder and Director of Blueprint Medicines, have been awarded the Japan Prize, for their contributions in the field of health care and medical technology. They received the award for helping develop imatinib.
"With imatinib, we've turned a fatal cancer into a manageable disease," Druker said in his acceptance speech. "Today patients who once had a life expectancy of three to five years are now expected to live 30 years."
William Pao, MD, PhD, Director of Personalized Cancer Medicine and the Division of Hematology and Oncology, and Mia Levy, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine and Cancer Clinical Informatics Officer, have won a $20,000 health care technology award sponsored by the National Cancer Institute for the new online medical support tool they created, "My Cancer Genome"-a database with information about specific cancer types, important genes, and genetic mutations, with links to recent studies and the latest therapy recommendations.
The contest, "Using Public Data for Cancer Prevention and Control: From Innovation to Impact Developer Challenge," was part of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's Investing in Innovation (i2) program.
Anne Katz, RN, PhD, has been named the new Editor of Oncology Nursing Forum, the Oncology Nursing Society's flagship journal. She is a clinical nurse specialist at Manitoba Prostate Centre, an adjunct professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Manitoba, and a sexuality counselor for the Department of Psychosocial Oncology, CancerCare in Winnipeg. She has been the editor of Nursing for Women's Health and the clinical practice journal of the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nursing, and is a contributing editor for American Journal of Nursing.
The Oncology Nursing Society has been awarded the 2011 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award in the Electronic Media category for publishing Advanced Oncology Nursing Certification Review and Resource Manual: Instructor's Resource, edited by Shirley Triest-Robertson, RN, PhD, AOCNS and Wendy H. Vogel, MSN, FNP, AOCNP.
The CD-ROM accompanies the ONS's print version of the manual, and covers 20 advanced oncology nursing topics and provides additional study resources for oncology advanced practice nurses, graduate nursing students, medical residents, physician assistants, and oncology nurses in clinical practice.
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