It is great to announce that Prof. Heather A. Wakelee (Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology at Stanford University, and the Associate Editor-in-Chief of TLCR) has been nominated as a President-Elect candidate for the 2019 IASLC elections. Meanwhile, Prof. Caicun Zhou (director of the Department of Oncology, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, director of Cancer Institute of Tongji University Medical School, chairman of the Oncology Department of Tongji University, and Co-Editor-in-Chief of TLCR) has been nominated as a candidate for IASLC Board of Directors Asia, and Prof. Ray Osarogiagbon (Research Professor at Vanderbilt University) has been nominated as a candidate for the North America seat on the Board of Directors of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).Congratulations!
We are impressed by the remarkable scientific work that Prof. Heather A. Wakelee, Prof. Caicun Zhou, and Prof. Ray Osarogiagbon have contributed to the field of lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies, and sincerely wish them a great success in the coming election. IASLC members will have received ballots from the IASLC via email.
Department of Medical Oncology, Stanford University and Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford, California.
Dr. Heather Wakelee is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology at Stanford University and is the faculty director of the Stanford Cancer Clinical Trials Office. She is a graduate of Princeton University and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed all post-graduate training at Stanford University. Dr. Wakelee has authored or co-authored over 200 medical articles on lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies and is involved in dozens of clinical trials related to lung cancer therapy and diagnostics. Her research focuses on many specific lung cancer subtypes defined by specific mutations in EGFR, ALK, ROS1, RET, BRAF and others. She is also involved in trials of adjuvant therapy, immunotherapy and anti-angiogenesis agents in addition to collaborations with colleagues focused in biomarkers and others focused in population science research. Dr. Wakelee is active in multiple national and international lung cancer research organizations including serving as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), co-chair of the thoracic committee, executive committee member, and Stanford Principal Investigator for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG-ACRIN), and Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (FASCO). In addition to her work on the IASLC Board of Directors, she has served the organization in many other capacities including as chair of the communications committee and as a member of the Board of Regents. Her work in immunotherapy of thoracic malignancies includes participation in multiple phase III trials of PD-(L)1 checkpoint inhibitors in advanced stage NSCLC and more recently involvement on steering committees for two phase III international trials exploring immune checkpoint inhibitors in the peri-operative period. She actively collaborates with many basic scientists at Stanford University seeking to better understand molecular and other biomarkers of immune response.
Department of Oncology, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Affiliated to Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
Prof. Dr. Caicun Zhou, PhD, MD, is director of the Department of Oncology, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, director of Cancer Institute of Tongji University Medical School, chairman of the Oncology Department of Tongji University. He studied in Japan for two years and was a visiting scientist in USA for half a year. Professor Zhou is a committee member of the Chinese Association of Lung Cancer and the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology, and is a council member of the Shanghai Anti-cancer Association, the Shanghai Pneumonology Association, and the Shanghai Oncology Association. He serves as a member on the editorial boards of many scientific journals, including ‘Tumor’, ‘Chinese-German Journal of Clinical Oncology’, ‘China Oncology’ and the ‘Chinese Journal of Clinical Oncology’ and also associate editor of Lung Cancer. Professor Zhou was selected as an ‘Excellent learning pioneer’ by the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (STCSM) in 2006, and got grants from the National 863 project and five other key research projects of the STCSM. His major research interests are in customized and targeted therapy of lung cancer, and he has published over 100 papers in scientific journals.
Director, Multidisciplinary Thoracic Oncology Program, Baptist Cancer Center, Memphis, TN, USA; Director, Thoracic Oncology Research Group.
Dr. Osarogiagbon is a Research Professor at Vanderbilt University, a Research Member of the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center, and a member of the Lung Cancer Disparities Center of the Harvard School of Public Health. He is board certified in the Internal Medicine subspecialties of Hematology and Medical Oncology, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society of Hematology, the Fleischner Society, and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. Dr. Osarogiagbon is the Principal Investigator of three major active US National Institutes of Health-funded projects: a Cancer Moonshot award, 1UM1CA233080-01 SIMPRO Research Center: Integration and Implementation of PROs for Symptom Management in Oncology Practice; an R01 award, 2R01CA172253 Improving pathologic nodal staging of resected lung cancer; and 1UG1CA189873-01 Baptist Health System/ Mid-South NCORP Minority Underserved Consortium.
Dr. Osarogiagbon’s research interests center around improving population-based systems of care, improving accuracy of cancer staging and evaluating the biologic drivers of outcome differences in potentially curable lung cancer. He is a member of the Health Services Organization and Delivery study section of the US National Institutes of Health, member of the NIH Cancer Prevention Steering Committee, leader of the NIH Cancer Screening and Prevention Research Interest Group, co-chair of SWOG Early Lung Cancer Sub-Committee, a member of the SWOG Board of Governors and member of the Hope Foundation for Cancer Research. In the IASLC, Dr. Osarogiagbon is the current Chairman of the Membership Committee, a member of the Staging and Prognostic Factors Committee, member of the Molecular Staging Sub-Committee and a member of the Strategic Planning Committee.