Hagop Kantarjian, MD, Awarded Highest Honor From ASCO
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) presented the 2023 David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award to Hagop Kantarjian, MD, Chair of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, for his contributions to leukemia clinical research and dedication to improving the lives of patients.
"Cancer research and patient care have been my life's passion and mission and I am honored to be recognized by ASCO with the society's highest scientific award," Kantarjian said. "I am grateful for all of the outstanding investigators in the Leukemia Department and outside colleagues whom I have had the privilege of working with throughout my career."
The David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award has been presented annually since 1970 to recognize an oncologist who has made outstanding contributions to cancer research, diagnosis, and/or treatment.
For the past 4 decades, Kantarjian has led practice-changing national and international clinical trials at MD Anderson for the treatment of all leukemia subtypes. These trials resulted in multiple FDA-approved drugs and delivered new standards of care across leukemias, significantly improving quality of life and survival rates across several leukemia subsets. Over the past 2 decades, Kantarjian has led national and international studies of innovative next-generation BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
"Throughout a remarkable career, Dr. Kantarjian has contributed immensely to our mission of ending cancer. He not only advanced new treatments and furthered our knowledge of leukemia, but his leadership has inspired so many in the MD Anderson community," said Peter WT Pisters, MD, President of MD Anderson. "We congratulate Hagop on this exceptional achievement, and we thank him for the countless lives he has saved around the world."
Among Kantarjian's many contributions to the field of leukemia, highlights include:
* Developing the HYPER-CVAD regimen as a standard-of-care frontline therapy for adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). This regimen led to a change in the treatment approach to stop the disease from spreading to a patient's central nervous system by administering a chemotherapy injection into the spinal fluid instead of treating with radiation therapy.
* Establishing clinical biology parameters of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), including definitions of CML phases and cytogenetic responses, as well as establishing new prognostic factors, which were subsequently adopted in studies of tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
* Leading the development of decitabine and epigenetic hypomethylation therapy for treating myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and older/unfit patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). He designed and conducted the Phase III trials that resulted in FDA approval of decitabine for MDS in 2006 and the European approval in older/unfit AML patients in 2012.
* Pioneering research with hypomethylating agents (HMAs) in combination with venetoclax, which resulted in FDA approval of HMA-venetoclax combinations in older/unfit patients with AML in 2017.
* Championing the development of clofarabine, conducting animal toxicology studies, and leading subsequent Phase I, Phase II, and pivotal Phase III and Phase IV trials that resulted in FDA approval of clofarabine for pediatric patients with ALL.
* Developing several FLT3 inhibitors, IDH inhibitors, and venetoclax that all received FDA approvals for the treatment of AML and its subsets.
* Leading the clinical development of multiple monoclonal antibodies for treating ALL, including inotuzumab and blinatumomab, and leading the multi-institutional national studies of these monoclonal antibodies in adult patients with ALL.
* Developing regimens containing inotuzumab and blinatumomab combined with chemotherapy for adults with pre-B ALL.
* Working on the development of imatinib, dasatinib, nilotinib, bosutinib, ponatinib and omacetaxine, which all received FDA approval for CML therapy.
In addition to his own research contributions, Kantarjian has dedicated his career to the training and mentoring of clinicians and researchers focused on leukemia research and patient care, many of whom now provide exceptional treatment at institutions worldwide. These relationships have broadened Kantarjian's impact in the field and helped to extend knowledge far beyond the walls of MD Anderson.
"Dr. Kantarjian's long list of accomplishments and groundbreaking discoveries are a testament to his lifelong commitment to impactful cancer research and patient care," said Giulio Draetta, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at MD Anderson. "As a community that strives to deliver cancer breakthroughs every day, we are immensely proud of him for receiving this well-deserved honor from ASCO."
Since 1995, Kantarjian has served as Chair of MD Anderson's Department of Leukemia. In 2000, he established the MD Anderson Leukemia Fellowship Program, which now trains 10 fellows each year. To date, he has published over 2,400 peer-reviewed articles in many top journals. Kantarjian has received many honors throughout his distinguished career, including the American Lebanese Medical Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, the American Association for Cancer Research's Joseph H. Burchenal Memorial Award, and the Leukemia Society of America's Outstanding Service to Mankind Award. He also was named an ASCO Fellow and a Leukemia Society of America Special Fellow and Scholar.
He has served on multiple ASCO committees throughout the years and served on the ASCO Board of Directors from 2010-2015. In 2012, Kantarjian co-founded the Society of Hematologic Oncology, which focuses on the research and education of rising oncologists interested in hematologic malignacies.
Kantarjian has been a vocal advocate for key issues in patient-centered cancer care, including issues pertaining to cancer drug shortages and costs. He currently is a non-resident fellow in health care at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Johns Hopkins Researchers to Study Roots of Cancer Metastasis
With a gift from researcher, philanthropist, and race car driver Theodore Giovanis, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine will study the biological roots of the most fatal aspect of cancer: how it metastasizes through the body. The contribution, a 15-year commitment, will establish the Giovanis Institute for Translational Cell Biology, dedicated to studying metastasis. The institute's researchers aim to make discoveries that reveal common features of metastasis across cancer types, with the potential to develop new therapies.
"Cancer is most dangerous when the disease has spread to many parts of the body, and conventional treatments are not effective enough for patients with metastatic disease," stated Andrew Ewald, PhD, the new Giovanis Institute Director, the Virginia DeAcetis Professor in Basic Cancer Research, and Director of the Department of Cell Biology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Research in our department has shown that many different cancers use similar molecular tools to spread, and we seek to design treatments to disrupt this process."
"Understanding fundamental biology drives the majority of medical advances, and this gift is incredibly important for that goal," noted Theodore DeWeese, MD, Interim Dean of the medical faculty and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Ewald and other researchers have previously received research funding from Giovanis' foundation, the Jayne Koskinas Ted Giovanis Foundation for Health and Policy, named to honor his late wife who died from metastatic breast cancer in 2010. Giovanis is an advisory board member of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences.
Giovanis' career spans a long history in hospital system finance and insurance regulation. He led the legal battle for hospitals for a multibillion-dollar settlement in 2012 to correct an error in reimbursement rates for hospitals. He was among the first staff to run the Health Services Cost Review Commission in Maryland, the only state to annually review and set Medicare and Medicaid payment rates for hospitals.
"Mr. Giovanis' gift will enable collaboration among scientists from many disciplines, including those who specialize in basic biology, clinical treatment of patients, physics, engineering, machine learning and computational medicine," stated Ewald, co-leader of the Cancer Invasion and Metastasis Program at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.
The institute will be housed in the Department of Cell Biology at Johns Hopkins Medicine on the East Baltimore campus. It will include a core group of cross-departmental scientists who focus on fundamental mechanisms of cancer metastasis and will also award grants to fund metastasis research at Johns Hopkins more broadly.
Herrington Elected President of the ACR
William T. Herrington, MD, FACR, was elected President of the American College of Radiology (ACR) during the ACR 2023 annual meeting in Washington. Don Yoo, MD, FACR, was elected ACR Vice President. Timothy A. Crummy, MD, MHA, FACR, was elected ACR Council speaker and Kurt Schoppe, MD, was elected vice speaker.
Herrington is the immediate past chair of the ACR Commission on Membership and Communications, a former speaker of the ACR Council, and past chair of the ACR Governance Committee and ACR Task Force on Brand Strategy. He is a diagnostic radiologist with Athens Radiology Associates, P.C. in Athens, GA, and former president of the Georgia Radiological Society, from which he received a Gold Medal in 2018. Herrington has also served on the ACR Executive, Government Relations, and Council Steering Committees.
"Dr. Herrington is an inspiring and untiring leader who has served with distinction in his multiple ACR and professional roles," said William T. Thorwarth Jr., MD, FACR, CEO of the ACR. "We look forward to his continued exemplary leadership in his role as ACR president."
Yoo is Director of Nuclear Medicine at the Miriam Hospital in Providence, RI, and Professor of Diagnostic Imaging, Director of Medical Student Radiology Education, and Co-Director of the general radiology elective at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. He is immediate past chair of the ACR Commission on Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, a member of the ACR Board of Chancellors, and a former president of the Rhode Island Radiological Society.
Crummy is Associate Medical Director of SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital in Madison, WI, and partner in Madison Radiologists, S.C. He previously served as ACR Council vice speaker and member of the ACR Board of Chancellors and ACR Executive Committee. He is also a former president of the Wisconsin Radiological Society.
Schoppe is President of Radiology Associates of North Texas in Dallas and an alternate panel member on economics to the American Medical Association/Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee. He is an immediate past member of the ACR Council Steering Committee and former chair of the Reimbursement and Practice Expense Committee under the ACR Commission on Economics.
Additional chancellors elected include the following:
* Amy L. Kotsenas, MD, FACR, of Rochester, MN, was elected chair of the ACR Commission on Membership and Communication.
* Eric Rohren, MD, PhD, FACR, of Houston, TX, was elected chair of the Commission on Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.
* Arun Krishnaraj, MD, MPH, FACR, of Charlottesville, VA was elected chair of the Commission on Patient- and Family-Centered Care.
* Lauren P. Nicola, MD, FACR, of Summerfield, NC, was elected chair of the Commission on Ultrasound.
* Andrew B. Rosenkrantz, MD, FACR, of New York, was re-elected chair of the Commission on Body Imaging.
* Eric M. Rubin, MD, FACR, of Media, PA, was re-elected chair of the Commission on Human Resources.
The Council Steering Committee includes Juan C. Batlle, MD, MBA, FACR, of Boulder, CO; Melissa L. Chen, MD, of Houston; Elizabeth Ann Ignacio, MD, FACR, of Kahului, HI; and Gaurang V. Shah, MD, FACR, of Ann Arbor, MI.
The College Nominating Committee will include Esma A. Akin, MD, FACR, of McLean, VA; Andrew Farach, MD, of Houston; and J. Henry Williams, MD, of Jackson, MS.
Helen Piwnica-Worms, PhD, & Richard Wood, PhD, Join National Academy of Sciences
Two researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Helen Piwnica-Worms, PhD, Professor of Experimental Radiation Oncology, and Richard Wood, PhD, Professor of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis, are recognized for their respective contributions to advancing the understanding of cancer genetics, biochemistry, and cell biology.
Piwnica-Worms and Wood are among 120 new members and 23 international associates recognized by NAS this year for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Established in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, NAS is a private, non-profit society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research. Piwnica-Worms and Wood join six previously elected scientists from MD Anderson, including James P. Allison, PhD, Neal Copeland, PhD, Ronald A. DePinho, MD, Nancy Jenkins, PhD, V. Craig Jordan, PhD, and Guillermina (Gigi) Lozano, PhD.
"Drs. Piwnica-Worms and Wood lead groundbreaking research that has changed the landscape of science as we know it, reflecting the mission of MD Anderson," said Peter WT Pisters, MD, President of MD Anderson. "We celebrate this recognition of the outstanding impact they have on cancer research. Congratulations to our esteemed colleagues on this honor."
Piwnica-Worms has made significant contributions to the understanding of the biochemical mechanisms of cell cycle regulation and to determining how perturbations in cell cycle control mechanisms contribute to cancer onset. She discovered the biochemical mechanism by which CDK1, a key regulator of mitosis, is activated or deactivated during the cell cycle and how its activation is prevented by cell cycle checkpoints. This was the first direct link demonstrated between cell cycle checkpoints and mitotic control.
Her work has been essential to the understanding of breast cancer development and progression, and her discoveries have prompted clinical studies for agents targeting the cell cycle and checkpoint proteins in multiple cancer types.
She currently is focused on identifying alterations driving triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and therapeutic resistance mechanisms. This research has already demonstrated that chemotherapy resistance in TNBC can occur through adaptable and reversible pathways, and it pointed to new vulnerabilities in drug-tolerant cancer cells.
Piwnica-Worms holds the Senator A.M. Aikin Jr. Distinguished Chair and was elected into the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Fellows of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy, and the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science & Technology.
Wood has made foundational contributions to the biochemistry and genetics of DNA repair and cancer development, elucidating how eukaryotic cells are protected from ultraviolet (UV) radiation damage. He established the first cell-free system for nucleotide excision repair (NER) in eukaryotes, allowing him to precisely define the NER mechanism and identify key enzymes in UV-induced damage repair. By reconstituting the entire NER pathway using 30 purified proteins, he made it possible for the first time to determine the role of each protein at each step.
These experiments included the discovery of the roles of replication proteins during NER and defining sequential NER steps at the molecular level, including opening the double helix by a multi-protein complex. The work revealed the specific biochemical defects in xeroderma pigmentosum, an inherited disease conferring a greatly increased risk of skin cancer.
Wood also was also the first to isolate the XPG and ERCC1-XPF nucleases and discovered their action via structure-specific incision. This work helped found the field of DNA structure-selective enzymology, now studied in multiple areas of DNA biology. His recent work has yielded numerous discoveries that define the roles of various DNA polymerases in genome stability and cancer.
Wood holds the J. Ralph Meadows Chair in Carcinogenesis and has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and as a member of TAMEST.