Eduardo M. Sotomayor, MD, has been appointed the inaugural Director of George Washington University Cancer Center, where he will also be Professor of Medicine. Sotomayor, who started this month, will oversee all aspects of the GWCC, which is scheduled to open next year.
"I am proud to welcome Dr. Sotomayor as a member of the Department of Medicine who will advance the clinical, educational, and research mission of the department," Alan Wasserman, MD, Chair of the Department of Medicine and President of the GW Medical Faculty Associates, said in a news release.
"In joining the largest department in the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dr. Sotomayor will lead our outstanding faculty in enriching the lives of cancer patients and the community we serve, and I couldn't be more excited to have someone with his reputation and talent lead us in becoming the premiere center for cancer research and patient care."
Sotomayor was most recently at Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, as Scientific Director of the DeBartolo Family Personalized Medicine Institute, as well as the Susan and John Sykes Endowed Chair of Hematologic Malignancies and Chair of the Department of Malignant Hematology. Sotomayor's primary area of research is immunobiology and immunotherapy of B-cell malignancies, with special emphasis on the design of novel immunotherapeutic approaches for these diseases. Clinically, Sotomayor has a particular interest in mantle cell lymphoma.
Lisa Kachnic, MD, has been named Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, a position she will start in September. She is currently Professor and Chair of Radiation Oncology and Associate Director of Multidisciplinary Cancer Research at Boston University School of Medicine, as well as Chief of Radiation Oncology at Boston Medical Center, and she serves on the Radiation Oncology faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"Dr. Kachnic comes to Vanderbilt as a nationally recognized clinician, researcher, and educator who will further mold our programs for national leadership in all three missions, on the 21st Avenue campus and at satellite programs throughout the region," Jeff Balser, MD, PhD, Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said in a news release. "Lisa brings a very strong research portfolio, a major national leadership profile, and a superb history of mentoring junior faculty."
As the new Chair, Kachnic will be responsible for overseeing Vanderbilt's Department of Radiation Oncology, including the residency program and the medical physics professional doctorate program. She is also actively involved in the NRG Oncology (NSABP RTOG GOG) gastrointestinal and patient-reported outcome strategic committees, and is Co-chair of their National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program in Cancer Control and Prevention. She is also Vice-chair of the NCI Anorectal Cancer Taskforce and Co-chair of the Anorectal Committee for SWOG, where she also serves as Multi-modality Executive Officer.
Her primary areas of clinical interest are gastrointestinal malignancies, image-guided radiation delivery and outcomes, and symptoms management research.
Sandy Melzer, MD, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Seattle Children's Hospital, has been appointed Executive Vice President for Networks and Population Health.
"Sandy has done a tremendous job as Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, leading Seattle Children's strategic planning and business development efforts," Seattle Children's CEO, Jeff Sperring, said in a news release. "This new appointment recognizes Seattle Children's increased focus on strategies to ensure our ability to serve every child and family who needs us-regardless of their ability to pay or their health plan coverage-in this changing and complex health care environment."
Melzer has developed systems at Seattle Children's that facilitate coordinated care between hospital specialists, primary care physicians, and other community providers, including the Pediatric Partners in Care project, which aims to improve outcomes and reduce costs of care for medically complex patients with multiple medical issues.
A primary initiative in Melzer's new role will be to develop new business models that evolve from expanding accountable care, including the implementation of the Seattle Children's Care Network, a collaboration between Children's University Medical Group providers and some 150 primary care physicians in the community.
Deanna J. Attai, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, is now President of the American Society of Breast Surgeons for the 2015-2016 financial year. She will oversee the full range of ASBrS activities, which include: certification and accreditation in breast-related techniques and treatments, sponsorships of registries and clinical trials, and a mastery program documenting a surgeon's clinical performance of breast procedures and care of breast cancer and high-risk patients.
"In my new role, I hope to enhance the Society's educational efforts through the annual meeting as well as though digital outreach, including webinars and social media involving both physicians and patients. Another major focal point this year will be our patient website, which will be a unique resource geared towards building greater involvement of the community in breast health education and ASBrS activities," Attai said in a news release
Attai has been a member of the ASBrS since 2002, and has served previously as ASBrS secretary, treasurer, and chair of the finance and communications committees. She has also been in private practice in Burbank, California for the past 19 years as a surgeon specializing in the care of patients with benign and malignant breast conditions. Attai (@DrAttai) is active in social media and co-leads the Breast Cancer Social Media community and #bcsmchat every Monday evening (OT 12/25/13 issue).
Heather Wakelee, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine, has received this year's ECOG-ACRIN Young Investigator Award, which recognizes extraordinary scientific achievements and research leadership contributions made by investigators during the early years of their careers. A committee composed of previous recipients and ECOG-ACRIN scientific leaders selects one awardee annually.
"Dr. Wakelee serves in important leadership roles at Stanford," George W. Sledge, Jr., MD, Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Medical Oncology at Stanford, said in a news release. "In addition to running the Thoracic Medical Oncology Program and directing our cancer clinical trials, she is the Stanford principal investigator for ECOG-ACRIN and for Stanford's NCI Lead Academic Participating Site U10 grant."
Wakelee also serves as Faculty Director of the Cancer Clinical Trials Office at the Stanford Cancer Institute, and is an active member of the ECOG-ACRIN Thoracic Committee. She is also the study chair for E1505, a Phase III trial testing chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab in patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer, which is the largest adjuvant chemotherapy trial conducted in North America for patients with early-stage lung cancer.
In other ECOG-ACRIN news, Valsamo (Elsa) Anagnostou, MD, PhD, has received the 2015 Paul Carbone, MD Fellowship Award, a $25,000 research grant to support her proposed study to understand what genetic alterations will predict the success of the immunotherapy drug nivolumab in treating patients with lung cancer. Her research will examine the connection between tumor genetics and a patient's response to immunotherapy.
Tara Schapmire, PhD, MSSW, Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and an affiliated faculty member at Kent School of Social Work, has received the Association of Oncology Social Work/American Cancer Society Leadership in Oncology Social Work Award for 2015. The national award recognizes an AOSW member for contributions to the field of oncology social work and leadership through administration, education, clinical practice, or research.
Schapmire, who received the award at the AOSW Annual Conference in May, is co-investigator for a five-year, $1.5 million National Cancer Institute grant to create and evaluate an interdisciplinary oncology palliative care curriculum, iCOPE (the Interdisciplinary Curriculum in Oncology Palliative Care Education). The program is being implemented across schools of social work, medicine, nursing, and chaplaincy residency programs. She is also co-investigator of the $7.5 million Kentucky LEADS Collaborative, a project dedicated to reducing the burden of lung cancer in Kentucky through community-based interventions to educate providers, care for survivors, and promote prevention through early lung cancer detection efforts.
The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has received a $10 million gift from the Gerstner Family Foundation to expand cancer research at the Broad as well as collaborations with Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The research will focus on the changes tumors undergo as they become resistant to drugs.
The Gerstner Family Foundation gift will support a two-pronged approach to the problem of cancer drug resistance: First, Broad researchers will systematically and comprehensively identify the mechanism of drug resistance, using CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) genome-editing technology, which allows researchers to use experimental models to rapidly test which genes are responsible for cancer drug resistance in a lab setting; and second, the Broad is partnering with Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and MSKCC to launch the largest study to date of pre-treatment and drug-resistant tumors. By comparing the genome sequence of pre-treatment tumors with resistant tumors, researchers hope to identify the mutations that cause resistance. A Broad Institute team will also build on efforts to develop blood-based tumor biopsies to isolate and study rare tumor cells in a patient's bloodstream.
The Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association has created a new Fellow of the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association (FHOPA) designation to recognize individuals who have made sustained contributions to HOPA and who have also demonstrated exceptional performance in oncology pharmacy.
The application deadline for the first FHOPA class is September 7, and the Fellows will be recognized in March at HOPA's Annual Educational Conference.
Lidia Schapira, MD, FASCO, a medical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has been appointed Editor in Chief of the American Society of Clinical Oncology's patient information website, Cancer.Net.
She assumed the new role during the ASCO Annual Meeting on June 1, and will serve a three-year term. She succeeds Robert S. Miller, MD, FACP, FASCO, who is now Medical Director of ASCO's Institute for Quality in December (OT 11/10/14 issue). In her new role, Schapira will head the Cancer.Net Editorial Board, composed of some 150 medical, surgical, radiation, and pediatric oncologists, physicians assistants, oncology nurses, social workers, and patient advocates.
Schapira has been Cancer.Net's Associate Editor of Psychosocial Oncology for 11 years, and guided the expansion of the Coping and Emotions section on the website, which now includes enhanced information on caregiving, managing emotions, and communicating with loved ones. She is also a co-investigator for a longitudinal study of young women with breast cancer, and is actively involved in local and global efforts to improve access to cancer care in underserved communities in the U.S. and in countries with limited health care resources.
New Advisory Board Members for Community Oncology Pharmacy Association
The Community Oncology Association has appointed the following members of its Advisory Board to join Co-Chairs Josh Cox, PharmD, BCPS, Director of Pharmacy at Dayton Physicians Network, and Tommy Harwood, CPT, Deputy Director of Clinical Operations at North Shore Hematology Oncology.
* John Clagg, RPh, Director of Pharmacy & Admixture Services of The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders;
* Steve D'Amato, BSPharm, BCOP, Executive Director of New England Cancer Specialists;
* Phil Johnson, RPh, MS, FASHP, Oncology Director of Premier Inc., in Charlotte, Florida;
* Stacey McCullough, PharmD, Director of Pharmacy at Tennessee Oncology;
* Michelle Moore, RPh, Clinical Pharmacy Manager at Michiana Hematology Oncology;
* Todd Murphree, PharmD, Manager of the Dispensing Pharmacy at Clearview Cancer Institute;
* Bob Phelan, Chief Executive Officer of Cancer Specialists of North Florida; and
* Mary Ann Roefaro, MS, FACMPE, Chief Executive Officer at Hematology-Oncology Associates of Central New York.
ONCC Elects New President, Board Members
* The Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation (ONCC) has elected four members to its Board of Directors, including a new President for 2015 to 2016. The new Board members are:
* Marybeth Singer, MS, ANP-BC, AOCN, a nurse practitioner at Tufts Medical Center, who was elected President;
* Rebecca O'Shea, OCN, AOCNS, CBCN, an oncology clinical nurse specialist and Cancer Program Coordinator and Navigator at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, who was elected Vice President;
* Diane Otte, RN, MS, OCN, Director of Cancer & Dermatology at Mayo Clinic Health System and Franciscan Healthcare Cancer Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin, who was elected Secretary/Treasurer; and
* Melody Watral, MSN, RN, CPNP-PC, CPON, a pediatric nurse practitioner and clinical instructor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, who was elected to be the Pediatric Oncology Nurse member of the Board.
Returning members of the Board are: Meredith Lahl, MSN, PCNS-BC, PPCNP-BC, CPON; Lucy Licameli, RN, BSN, OCN; Susie Newton, MS, RN, AOCN, AOCNS; Kathy Riley, BS; Michael Smart, RN, BSN, OCN; Margaret Barton-Burke, PhD, RN, FAAN; Brenda Nevidjon, RN, MSN, FAAN; and Cynthia Miler Murphy, RN, MSN, CAE.
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