Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, has been elected President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology for a one-year term beginning in June 2015. She will take office as President-Elect during the Annual Meeting this June.

She is the Neumann M. and Mildred E. Harris Professorial Chair and Chief of the Oncology/Hematology Division at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Associate Director of Clinical Research and Co-Chair of the Lymphoma Program at the Fred and Pamela Buffet Cancer Center. Since joining ASCO in 1991, she has served on the Board of Directors, as Chair of the Cancer Education Committee, and is the current Chair-Elect of the Integrated Media and Technology Committee, among other activities.

Since 2006, Vose has been Associate Director of Clinical Research and is Co-Chair of the Lymphoma Program at the Fred and Pamela Buffet Cancer Center. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the University of Nebraska Medical Center Physicians Group, Co-Chair of the Lymphoma Steering Committee for the National Cancer Institute, and serves on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee.

ASCO has also elected four new physicians to its Board of Directors. Each will begin four-year terms in June:

* Linda D. Bosserman, MD, FACP, President of the Wilshire Oncology Medical Group, Inc., in Los Angeles, has been selected to a Community Oncologist seat. She joined ASCO in 1990 and has served on the Quality Care Symposium Planning Committee and Practice Guidelines Implementation Network, among other activities.

* David Khayat, MD, PhD, FASCO, Head of the Department of Medical Oncology at Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, has been elected to an International Oncologist seat. Since joining ASCO in 1987, he has served as Chair of the International Affairs Committee, on the Cancer Education Committee, and as Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, among other activities. He has served as President of the French National Cancer Institute and the French Federation of Medical Oncologists.

* Walter J. Curran, Jr., MD, Executive Director of the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University and the Lawrence W. Davis Professor and Chairman of Emory's Department of Radiation Oncology, has been elected to a Radiation Oncologist seat. Since joining ASCO in 1988, he has served on the Cancer Research Committee, the Cancer.Net Editorial Board, and the Conquer Cancer Foundation Advanced Clinical Research Award in Glioma Subcommittee, among other activities. He is one of three founding principal investigators of the NRG Oncology cooperative group and the Founding Chair of the NRG Oncology Foundation Board.

* Charles D. Blanke, MD, FACP, FRCPC, FASCO, Professor of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology and Chair of SWOG, has been elected to an Undesignated Specialty seat. Since joining ASCO in 1995, he has served as Chair of the Cancer Education Committee, Co-Chair of the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium Program Committee, and on the Journal of Clinical Oncology Editorial Board, among other activities.

Peter A. Jones, PhD, DSc, has been appointed Chief Scientific Officer of Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich., starting on Feb. 17, after most recently serving as Distinguished Professor of Urology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

"We have found a visionary leader in biomedical research, whose experience will bridge basic and translational research and inform the national expansion of the Institute for many years to come," David Van Andel, Chairman and CEO of the Institute, said in a news release. Jones joined USC in 1977 and was Director of the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center there from 1993 to 2011.

The Community Oncology Alliance has announced its newly elected officers and board members. Elected to the COA Board were:

* Mark Thompson, MD, oncologist at the Zangmeister Center in Columbus, Ohio, current President, who was elected to serve an additional six months until June 2014;

* Bruce Gould, MD, oncologist at the Northwest Georgia Oncology Centers, current President-Elect, who will take office this July;

* Jeff Vacirca, MD, FACP, oncologist at North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates, Vice President;

* Michael Diaz, MD, oncologist at Florida Cancer Specialists in St. Petersburg, Fla., Secretary; and

* Ricky Newton, CPA, Director at Tidewater Cancer Specialists in Norfolk, Va., Treasurer.

Two hematologists have joined Seattle Cancer Care Alliance: David A. Garcia, MD, a specialist in thrombosis and blood disorders, as Professor of Hematology in the Department of Medicine/Hematology and Associate Medical Director for Antithrombotic Therapy at the University of Washington Medical School; and Stephen Douglas Smith, MD, a medical oncologist with expertise in lymphoma, as Associate Professor in the University of Washington School of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology and as an attending physician at the University of Washington Medical Center.

Garcia was previously at the University of New Mexico; and Smith was at Oregon Health and Science University Hospital and Knight Cancer Institute.

Nathanael Gray, PhD, Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and scientific founder of Syros Pharmaceuticals, has received the 2013 Meyenburg Cancer Research Award. The award is given annually by the Meyenburg Foundation under the auspices of the German Cancer Research Center to acknowledge excellence in scientific accomplishments in the field of cancer research and treatment.

His research uses synthetic chemistry and functional small-molecule discovery to modulate biological pathways important in cancer. His research team has been responsible for the discovery of numerous first-in-class kinase inhibitors that have become widely used biological reagents and inspired drug discovery programs.

Two Team Science Awards totaling $1 million have been jointly granted by the Melanoma Research Alliance and the Hidary Foundation. The studies will use new technologies such as genomic sequencing to investigate the genetic changes that drive the development and growth of acral melanoma.

Jeffrey Sosman, MD, Professor of Medicine and leader of the Melanoma Program at Vanderbilt University, will lead one of the teams, along with colleagues from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the nonprofit Translational Genomics Research Institute.

Maryam Asgari, MD, MPH, Investigator at Kaiser Permanente Research Institute, will lead the second team, which also includes investigators from the University of California San Francisco.

"In the past few years, we have been making progress in new therapies for melanoma patients, but we still know very little about the origins and drivers of acral melanoma," Sosman said in a news release. "This team science initiative will enable us to work collaboratively with other leading melanoma investigators to pool our knowledge and accelerate the pace of scientific discoveries."

The Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology has named the recipients of the inaugural 2014 International Innovation Grants. The program provides one-year grants of up to $20,000 to nonprofit organizations and government agencies in low- and middle-income countries (as categorized by the World Bank) to support new clinical approaches designed to improve cancer control on a local, community level, while also being potentially applicable in similar low-resource settings elsewhere.

The grants were awarded to:

* The University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku-Ozalla in Nigeria for the project, "Impact of community health educators on uptake of cervical and breast cancer screening and Human Papilloma Virus vaccination in rural southeast Nigeria," which will be led by Chibuike Ogwuegbu Chigbu, MBBS, FWACS;

* The Tanzania Public Health Association in Tanzania for the project, "80 Children Strong"-a project designed to reduce the percentage of children under 14 years old who use tobacco products in Dar es Salaam through the implementation of a school-based tobacco awareness campaign, which will be led by Bertha Tsingay Maegga, PhD;

* The Fundacion Para la Prevencion y Tratamiento del Cancer in Colombia for the project, "A model telehealth education intervention to improve cervical cancer service provision and health outcomes in Colombia," which will be led by Armando Sardi, MD, FACS; and

* The University of Medicine 1, Yangon in Myanmar for the project, "Effectiveness of a visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and cryotherapy based single-visit approach to cervical cancer prevention in Taikkyi Township," which will be led by Mya Thida, MBBS.

Duane Mitchell, MD, PhD, the Phyllis Kottler Friedman Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, Director of the Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program, and Co-Director of the Preston A. Wells, Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy, at the University of Florida, has received $575,000 in funding from the Florida Brain Tumor Association and Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure for his research in pediatric brain tumor immunotherapy, with a trial set to open for enrollment early this year.

Beti Thompson, PhD, Associate Program Head and Associate Director for Health Disparities Research in the Cancer Prevention Program of the Public Health Sciences Division of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, presented the fourth annual American Association for Cancer Research Distinguished Lecture on Cancer Health Disparities during the opening plenary session of the Sixth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved in Atlanta in December.

The lectureship recognizes an investigator whose novel and significant work has had or may have a far-reaching impact on the etiology, detection, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of cancer health disparities. Her lecture was titled, "Eliminating Cancer Health Disparities: Can It Be Done?"

She played a key role in developing the National Cancer Institute project "Comprehensive Partnerships to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities (U54)."

Rebecca Kirch, JD, Director of Quality of Life & Survivorship at the American Cancer Society, has received the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) Innovation Award, which recognizes her work in the palliative care field. "The success of the American Cancer Society's palliative care efforts is the direct result of Rebecca's insight and creativity. We salute Rebecca for her visionary and strategic efforts to improve the care of all Americans living with serious illness," CAPC Director Diane E. Meier, MD, FACP, said in a news release.

Timika C. Craig, a certified nurse's aide at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, has received the $1,000 Eva M. Noles Scholarship for 2013. Craig has been at RPCI for five years, and she is currently enrolled in the nursing program at Niagara County Community College, where she plans to complete her degree in the spring of 2015.

"Ms. Craig was chosen as this year's scholarship winner due to her scholastic achievements and her demonstrated teamwork and sensitivity to all of her patients' needs," David Scott, RPCI Director of Diversity and Inclusion, said in a news release.

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