Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested Insight On His Net Worth And Bio? 113 Most Correct Answers

You are viewing this post: Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested Insight On His Net Worth And Bio? 113 Most Correct Answers

Are you looking for an answer to the topic “Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested Insight On His Net Worth And Bio“? We answer all your questions at the website Bangkokbikethailandchallenge.com in category: Bangkokbikethailandchallenge.com/digital-marketing. You will find the answer right below.

Keep Reading

Louis Ziskin’s net worth is in the millions thanks to DropIn. But he was arrested last weekend. Let’s find out why.

Louis is CEO and Founder of DropIn, Inc. DropIn is a remote on-demand video inspection platform.

Louis Ziskin Net Worth

Louis Ziskin net worth is around $100 million.

However, DropIn’s CEO is certainly worth millions.

In fact, Ziskin was featured in Forbes in 2018. The article mainly revolves around its value at Lyft, Hiscox, and Beazley. In addition, Louis made DropIn a Lloyds Approved Vendor in 2018.

Interestingly, Louis was in business in 2015. His ea for DropIn was to develop a live streaming platform for drones. They prove video coverage of breaking news from disaster areas.

Louis raised $5.5 million in funding from multiple investors for his project. However, he was left with less capital to develop an application on the phones.

So Ziskin entered a $60 billion-a-year insurance market. He then relaunched his company to enable insurance companies to examine claims from insurers in real time.

Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested?

Louis Ziskin was arrested in broad daylight for the knapping.

Ziskin and Jeremy Manchester are sa to have knapped a Thai businessman from a restaurant. They were arrested last weekend.

Also, Ziskin was convicted of an alleged revenge-ransom knapping worth $2.95 million. The event was caught on surveillance camera at a Bangkok restaurant.

🧐!!”Louis William Ziskin, the CEO of a Los Angeles-based tech company, and Jeremy Hughes Manchester, who has been entified as a former US Marine, were arrested along with a Thai man on Saturday.” https://t.co/ufLjrVBTly

– 🤟😷 All vaxed Kartell Hecklers 🥳 (@littlehawk463) May 20, 2021

In fact, Ziskin was jailed for drug smuggling back in 2000. He was convicted of smuggling £700 of ecstasy. Specifically, he received a $9 million fine and 188 months in prison.

Interestingly, his sentence was reduced and he was released in 2011. He also saw his life as an entrepreneur change. He made his name as a businessman and not as a big Ecstasy importer in the LA area.

Louis Ziskin Wikipedia Bio

Louis Ziskin was mentioned in his own Wikipedia biography.

Ziskin turned 51 years old. To point it out, he was born on October 17, 1969 in Los Angeles, California. He also graduated from the University of Southern California.

Outse of business, Louis is involved in public speaking about anti-relapse and recovery from addiction.

Five Arrested For Kidnapping RTI Activist In Sambalpur

Watch The Video Below

Five Arrested For Kidnapping RTI Activist In Sambalpur

Images related to the topicFive Arrested For Kidnapping RTI Activist In Sambalpur

See some more details on the topic Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested Insight On His Net Worth And Bio here:

Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested? Insight On His Net Worth And …

Louis Ziskin’s net worth is in millions thanks to DropIn. But he was arrested last weekend. Let us find out why.

+ View More Here

Source: musicliberia.com

Date Published: 5/11/2022

LA Entrepreneur Arrested in Thai Kidnap and Ransom Plot

Louis Ziskin was arrested in 2000 and convicted of being part of a drug ring that smuggled large amounts of ecstasy to Southern California …

+ View Here

Source: www.nbclosangeles.com

Date Published: 5/4/2021

Who Is Comedian Des Bishop? Hannah Berner Wikipedia … – ZGR.net

Total Des Bishop Net Worth in 2021 $1 Million – $5 Million (Approx.) Des Bishop Education. Des Bishop …

+ Read More

Source: wiki.zgr.net

Date Published: 10/17/2022

Gage Graham-Arbuthnot Wikipedia, Age, Biography, Height …

He is known for his Hollywood films and TV productions. … Estimated Gage Graham-Arbuthnot Net Worth in 2020 $1 Million – $5 Million (Approx.) …

+ View More Here

Source: wiki.zio.org

Date Published: 3/30/2021

LA Entrepreneur Once Tied to Large Drug Ring Arrested in Thai Kidnap and Ransom Plot

Police in Thailand said Thursday they are pursuing other suspects in the kidnapping of a Taiwanese businessman for which an American businessman with a criminal record and two other men have already been arrested.

The case concerns a business dispute over the purchase of nitrile gloves, critical personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic.

Louis William Ziskin, the CEO of a Los Angeles-based tech company, and Jeremy Hughes Manchester, identified as a former US Marine, were arrested along with a Thai man on Saturday. The five other suspects are from the US and Israel, said Police Colonel Netiwit Thanasithnitikul of Thailand’s Crime Suppression Division.

Ziskin and Manchester have denied the allegations, which include kidnapping, attempted murder, assault and membership of a criminal gang. Both are free on deposit but must wear tracking devices at all times and are not allowed to leave Thailand.

Keep up to date with local news and the weather in Southern California. Get the NBC LA app for iOS or Android and choose your notifications.

Responding to an email inquiry from The Associated Press, Ziskin has stated in a series of exchanges that the Thai police reports are misleading and that he has evidence that would clear him of wrongdoing.

Netiwit said the case was the result of a business deal between Ziskin and the company the Taiwanese worked for. Ziskin accused the company of fraud by selling him substandard nitrile gloves for nearly $3 million.

Netiwit said Ziskin allegedly hired a group of American and Israeli private investigators based in Thailand to help recover the money he paid the Taiwanese company for the gloves.

“This crime has two complicated aspects. One is a kidnapping attempt and the other is the medical supplies deal that went wrong during the COVID time,” Netiwit said.

He said Thailand is a major glove supplier and “we hear so many stories of fraudulent deals from people claiming to represent a legitimate glove company without really having any connection.”

He said the police white-collar crime unit was investigating the glove deal.

According to a police statement following Saturday’s arrests, the Taiwanese company’s representative, Wen Yu Chung, was lured to a meeting in March on the pretext of discussing the possible purchase of rubber gloves.

The group allegedly hired by Ziskin, including Manchester, seized Wen in front of customers, restaurant staff and a security camera, dragged him outside after a brief struggle and bundled him into a waiting vehicle, which took him to a rented space nearby, according to testimony said.

Wen was allegedly threatened with physical violence and the men who held him are accused of using his phone to call his company to demand $2 million and his family to demand $1 million, the said Police. The company refused and contacted the authorities.

Wen was then taken to another restaurant, where police say Ziskin insisted that the Taiwanese company refund his payment for the gloves.

That same night, they took Wen to a police station, where they asked him to sign a statement saying he would not press charges against them, the statement said. He refused, after which he was released and later returned to the police station to file a complaint, sources said.

Ziskin was arrested and convicted in 2000 for being part of a drug ring that smuggled large quantities of ecstasy into Southern California from Europe, US court documents show. He was released from prison in 2011 and then turned entrepreneur whose flagship business, DropIn Inc., uses drones to help insurance companies assess risks and verify claims.

He is also an active motivational speaker, presenting himself in personal appearances, interviews and podcasts as an example of how a convicted criminal can clean up his act and thrive in legitimate businesses.

——-

This story has been corrected to say that Ziskin responded to a request for comment. His initial email reply to the AP was overlooked.

___

Associated Press writer Grant Peck contributed to this report.

Fight Club

1999 film directed by David Fincher

Fight Club is a 1999 American film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter. It is based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. Norton plays the unnamed narrator who is unhappy with his office job. He forms a “fight club” with soap salesman Tyler Durden (Pitt) and becomes involved in a relationship with a penniless woman, Marla Singer (Bonham Carter).

Palahniuk’s novel was chosen by Fox 2000 Pictures producer Laura Ziskin, who hired Jim Uhls to write the film adaptation. Fincher was chosen because of his enthusiasm for the story. He developed the script with Uhls and sought advice from the cast and others in the film industry. It was filmed in and around Los Angeles from July to December 1998. He and the cast compared the film to Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and The Graduate (1967), with a theme of conflict between Generation X and the advertising value system.[5][6]

Studio executives disliked the film and restructured Fincher’s intended marketing campaign to try to reduce expected losses. Fight Club failed to meet the studio’s expectations at the box office, and received polarized reactions from critics. It was ranked as one of the most controversial and talked about films of 1999. The film later found commercial success with its home video release, establishing Fight Club as a cult classic and prompting the media to revisit the film. In 2009, on the tenth anniversary of the film’s release, The New York Times called it “the defining cult film of our time.”[7]

edit plot ]

The narrator, a car recall specialist, is unhappy with his job and possessions and suffers from chronic insomnia. To cure this, he attends support groups and poses as suffering from illnesses. His bliss is disrupted when another scammer, Marla Singer, starts attending the same groups. The two agree to split up the groups they visit.

On a flight home from a business trip, the narrator meets soap salesman Tyler Durden. The narrator returns home to find his apartment and all his belongings destroyed in an explosion. Discouraged by the loss of his material goods, he calls Tyler and they meet at a bar. Tyler tells him that he is trapped in consumerism. In the parking lot, he asks the narrator to hit him and they have a fistfight. They find the experience cathartic and agree to do it again.

The narrator moves into Tyler’s house, a large run-down house in an industrial area. They have more fights outside of the bar, which attract more and more men. The fights move to the basement of the bar, where the men form the Fight Club of the same name, which meets regularly.

Marla overdoses on pills and calls the narrator for help; he ignores her, but Tyler goes to her apartment to save her. They begin a sexual relationship, much to the narrator’s annoyance. Tyler warns the narrator never to discuss him with Marla. The narrator blackmails his boss out of his company’s fortune to support Fight Club and quits his job.

Other new members join Fight Club, including Robert “Bob” Paulsen, a man with testicular cancer whom the narrator had previously met at one of his support groups. Tyler then recruits its members into a new anti-materialist and anti-corporate organization, Project Mayhem, without the Narrator’s involvement. The group engages in subversive acts of vandalism that increasingly trouble the narrator. After the Narrator complains that Tyler locked him out, Tyler reveals that he was the one who caused the explosion at the Narrator’s apartment.

Tyler disappears one night and when Paulsen is killed by the police while fleeing a sabotage operation, the narrator tries to stop the project. Following a paper trail to cities Tyler has visited, he discovers that Project Mayhem has spread across the country. In one town, a project member addresses the narrator as “Mr. Durden”. Confused, the narrator calls Marla and discovers that she also believes he is Tyler. Tyler appears in his hotel room with a different haircut and attire, revealing that they are dissociated personalities. The narrator took on the personality of Tyler when he thought he was asleep.

The narrator faints. Returning to the house, he uncovers Tyler’s plans to pay off debts by destroying buildings containing credit card records. He apologizes to Marla and warns her that she is in danger, but she is weary of his contradictory behavior and refuses to listen. He tries to alert the police, but the officers are members of the project. He tries to defuse the explosives in a building, but Tyler overpowers him.

When Tyler holds him at gunpoint on the top floor, the narrator realizes that the narrator is holding the gun since he and Tyler are the same person. He shoots it in his own mouth, shoots through his cheek. Tyler dies and the Narrator stops mentally projecting him. Project Mayhem members bring a kidnapped Marla into the building. The Narrator and Marla reconcile and, holding hands, the two watch as the explosives detonate and buildings collapse around them.

Cast[edit]

Themes [edit]

For academic interpretations of the film, see Fight Club Interpretations

We are hunters and live in a purchasing society. There is nothing left to kill, nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In this social emasculation this Everyman [the narrator] arises. —David Fincher[8]

Fincher said Fight Club is a coming-of-age film, like the 1967 film The Graduate, but for people in their 30s. Fincher described the narrator as “Anyone”;[8] the character is identified as “Jack” in the script but is unnamed in the film.[9] Fincher outlined the narrator’s background: “He’s tried to do everything he’s been taught, tried to fit into the world by becoming what he isn’t.” Unable to find happiness, he journeys on a path to enlightenment that involves “killing” his parents, god, and teacher. At the beginning of the film he “killed” his parents. With Tyler Durden, he kills his god by doing things they shouldn’t be doing. To complete the maturation process, the narrator must kill his teacher, Tyler Durden.[10]

The character is an inversion of the 1990s graduate archetype: “A guy who doesn’t have a world of opportunity ahead of him, he has no opportunities, he literally can’t think of a way to change his life.” He’s confused and angry, so he reacts to his surroundings by creating Tyler Durden, a Nietzschean superman, in his mind. Although Tyler is who the narrator wants to be, he lacks empathy and does not help the narrator make decisions in his life “that are complicated and have moral and ethical implications”. Fincher explained, “[Tyler] can deal with the concepts of our lives in an idealistic way, but it has nothing to do with the compromises of real life as modern man knows it. That said: They’re not really necessary. It’s built, it just needs to run now.”[8] While studio execs feared Fight Club would become “sinister and riotous,” Fincher tried to make it “fun and riotous,” including Humor to soften the dark element.[11]

Describing the film as a romantic comedy, screenwriter Jim Uhls explained, “It has to do with the characters’ attitudes towards a healthy relationship, which are a lot of behaviors that seem unhealthy and harsh to one another, but actually work for them — because both characters are psychologically the most healthy.” standing in the abyss.”[12] The narrator seeks closeness, but avoids it with Marla Singer because he sees too much of himself in her.[13] While Marla is a seductive and negativistic prospect for the narrator, he embraces the newness and excitement that comes with befriending Tyler. The narrator is comfortable with being personally involved with Tyler, but becomes jealous when Tyler becomes sexually involved with Marla. When the narrator argues with Tyler about their friendship, Tyler tells him that being friends is secondary to pursuing the philosophy they have explored.[14] When Tyler hints that Marla is a risk they should eliminate, the narrator realizes that he should have focused on her and begins to stray from Tyler’s path.[13]

We decided early on that as the film progressed I would start starving myself while [Brad Pitt] would pick himself up and go to the tanning bed; he became more and more idealized as I wasted away. —Edward Norton[15]

The narrator, an unreliable narrator, is not immediately aware that he is mentally projecting Tyler. He also falsely encourages fight clubs to feel powerful, though the Narrator’s physical condition deteriorates while Tyler Durden’s appearance improves. While Tyler initially desires “real experiences” of actual fights like the Narrator,[18] he manifests a nihilistic attitude to reject and destroy institutions and value systems.[19] Its impulsive nature, representing the id,[13] is seductive and liberating for the narrator and the members of Project Mayhem. Tyler’s initiatives and methods become dehumanizing;[19] he bosses the members of Project Mayhem around with a megaphone, much like camp leaders in Chinese re-education camps.[13] The narrator pulls away from Tyler and reaches a middle ground between his contradictory selves.[14]

Fight Club explores the fears of Generation X as “the middle children of history.”[6] Norton said it examines the value conflicts of Generation X as the first generation to grow up on television: This generation had “its value system largely dictated by advertising culture” and was told that one could “attain spiritual happiness through home furniture”. [5 ][18] His character walks through his apartment while visual effects identify his many IKEA possessions. Fincher described the narrator’s immersion: “It was just the idea of living in this fraudulent notion of happiness.” Pitt said, “Fight Club is a metaphor for the need to break down the walls we’ve built around us and just get going so we can experience the pain for the first time.”[21]

Fight Club also parallels the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause; both examine the frustrations of people in the system.[18] The socially emasculated figures are reduced to “a generation of spectators”.[22] A culture of advertising defines society’s “outer signs of happiness” and causes an unnecessary pursuit of material goods to replace the more important pursuit of spiritual happiness. The film references consumer goods such as Gucci, Calvin Klein and the Volkswagen New Beetle. Norton said of the bug, “We smash it … because it seemed like the classic example of a baby boomer marketing plan that sold us culture back to us.”[23] Pitt explained the dissonance: “I think there’s a self- Defense mechanism that keeps my generation from making a truly honest connection or commitment to our true feelings. We cheer on ball teams, but we don’t get in there to play. We’re so concerned about failures and successes—like those two things are all that’ll wrap you up in the end.”[21]

The violence of fight clubs is not there to promote or glorify the fight, but to give participants a sense of being in a society where they are otherwise jaded.[24] The struggles represent a resistance to the impulse to become “cooked” in society.[22] Norton believed that fighting removes the “fear of pain” and “reliance on material signifiers of their self-esteem” and allows them to experience something worthwhile. As the struggles escalate into revolutionary violence, the film only half accepts Tyler Durden’s revolutionary dialectic; the narrator withdraws and rejects Durden’s ideas.[14] Fight Club intentionally forms an ambiguous message that is left up to the audience to interpret.[19] Fincher said: “I love this idea that you can have fascism without offering any direction or solution. Isn’t the point of fascism to say: ‘This is the way we should go’? But this film couldn’t be further from offering any sort of solution.”[11]

production [edit]

Development [edit]

Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club was published in 1996. Ahead of its publication, a Fox Searchlight Pictures book scout sent a proof of the novel to creative director Kevin McCormick. The executive commissioned a studio reader to review the evidence as a candidate for a film adaptation, but the reader advised against it. McCormick then forwarded the evidence to producers Lawrence Bender and Art Linson, who also dismissed it. Producers Josh Donen and Ross Bell saw potential and expressed interest. They arranged unpaid screen readings with actors to determine the length of the script, and an initial reading lasted six hours. The producers cut out sections to shorten the running time, and they used the shorter script to capture the dialogue. Bell sent the recording to Fox 2000 director Laura Ziskin, who listened to the tape and bought the rights to Fight Club from Palahniuk for $10,000.

Ziskin initially considered hiring Buck Henry to write the adaptation, and felt that Fight Club resembled the 1967 film The Graduate, which Henry had adapted. When a new screenwriter, Jim Uhls, hired Donen and Bell for the job, the producers chose him over Henry. Bell contacted four directors to direct the film. He thought Peter Jackson was the best choice, but Jackson was too busy shooting the 1996 film The Frighteners in New Zealand. Bryan Singer received the book but did not read it. Danny Boyle met Bell and read the book, but he pursued another film. David Fincher, who had read Fight Club and tried to buy the rights himself, spoke to Ziskin about directing the film. He was initially reluctant to take the job at 20th Century Fox because he had an uncomfortable experience while directing the 1992 film Alien 3 for the studio. To mend his relationship with the studio, he met with Ziskin and studio head Bill Mechanic.[25] In August 1997, 20th Century Fox announced that Fincher would direct the film adaptation of Fight Club.[26]

casting [edit]

Producer Ross Bell met with actor Russell Crowe to discuss his candidacy for the role of Tyler Durden. Producer Art Linson, a latecomer to the project, met with Pitt for the same role. Linson was the executive producer of the two, so the studio tried to cast Pitt instead of Crowe. Pitt was looking for a new film after the failure of his 1998 film Meet Joe Black, and the studio believed Fight Club would be more commercially successful with a big star. The studio signed Pitt for $17.5 million.

For the role of the unnamed narrator, the studio wanted a “sexier marquee name” like Matt Damon to boost the film’s commercial prospects; it also accounted for Sean Penn. Fincher instead considered Norton based on his performance in the 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt. Other studios turned to Norton for lead development roles on films like The Talented Mr. Ripley and Man on the Moon. He was cast on the Runaway Jury, but the film never made it to production. 20th Century Fox offered Norton $2.5 million for Fight Club. He couldn’t immediately accept the offer because he still owed Paramount Pictures a film; He had signed a contractual commitment with Paramount to appear in one of the studio’s future films for a reduced salary. Norton later fulfilled the obligation with his role in the 2003 film The Italian Job.[27]

In January 1998, 20th Century Fox announced that Pitt and Norton had been cast.[29] The actors prepared by taking boxing, taekwondo, grappling,[30] and soap-making classes.[31] Pitt voluntarily visited a dentist to have parts of his front teeth chipped off so his character wouldn’t have perfect teeth. The pieces were restored after filming was completed.[32]

Fincher’s first choice for the role of Marla Singer was Janeane Garofalo. While Fincher initially stated she turned it down because she objected to the film’s sexual content, in a 2020 interview, Garofolo revealed that she accepted the role but was dropped because Norton believed she was ill-suited for the role ] The filmmakers considered Courtney Love and Winona Ryder to be early candidates.[35] The studio wanted to cast Reese Witherspoon, but Fincher felt she was too young. He chose to cast Bonham Carter based on her performance in the 1997 film The Wings of the Dove.

writing [edit]

Uhls began work on a draft of the adapted screenplay, which ruled out voiceovers because the industry felt the technology was “worn and hackneyed” at the time. When Fincher joined the film, he thought the film should have a voiceover as he believed the film’s humor came from the narrator’s voice. He described the film as seemingly “sad and pathetic” without the voiceover.[37] Fincher and Uhls revised the script for six to seven months, and by 1997 had a third draft that rearranged the story and left out several key elements. When Pitt was cast, he was concerned that his character, Tyler Durden, was too one-dimensional. Fincher sought the advice of writer-director Cameron Crowe, who suggested adding more ambiguity to the character. Fincher also hired screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker to assist. He invited Pitt and Norton to help revise the script, and the group drafted five revisions over the course of a year.

Palahniuk praised the faithful film adaptation of his novel and applauded that the film’s plot was more streamlined than the book’s. Palahniuk recalled the writers debating whether film audiences would believe the novel’s plot. Fincher supported the inclusion of the twist, arguing, “If they accept everything up to this point, they will accept the plot twist. If they’re still in the theatre, they’ll stick with it.” [38] Palahniuk’s novel also contained homoerotic overtones, which Fincher incorporated into the film to make the audience uncomfortable and emphasize the surprise of the twists. The bathroom scene where Tyler Durden bathes next to the narrator is an example of the overtones; the line “I wonder if another woman is really the answer we need” was intended to suggest more personal responsibility than homosexuality.[13] Another example is the scene at the beginning of the film where Tyler Durden puts a gun barrel in the narrator’s mouth.[40]

The narrator finds redemption at the end of the film by rejecting Tyler Durden’s dialectic, a path that deviates from the ending of the novel in which the narrator is placed in a mental institution. Norton drew parallels between Redemption in the film and Redemption in The Graduate, suggesting that the protagonists of both films find a middle ground between two divisions of the self.[14] Fincher felt the novel was too besotted with Tyler Durden and changed the ending to move away from him: “I wanted people to love Tyler, but I also wanted them to be okay with his victory.”[11]

filming [edit]

Studio heads Mechanic and Ziskin planned an initial budget of $23 million to fund the film, [25] but by the time production started, the budget had increased to $50 million. Half was paid for by New Regency, but during filming the projected budget escalated to $67 million. Arnon Milchan, head of New Regency and executive producer of Fight Club, urged Fincher to cut the cost by at least $5 million. Fincher refused, so Milchan Mechanic threatened that New Regency would withdraw funding. Mechanic attempted to restore Milchan’s support by sending him tapes of Fight Club dailies. After watching three weeks of filming, Milchan restored financial support from New Regency.[41] The final production budget was $63-65 million.[2][4]

The fight scenes were heavily choreographed, but the actors had to “go all out” to capture realistic effects, such as: B. to knock the wind out of them. Makeup artist Julie Pearce, who worked for Fincher on the 1997 film The Game, studied mixed martial arts and pay-per-view boxing to accurately portray the fighters. She designed an extra’s ear with missing cartilage, inspired by the boxing match in which Mike Tyson bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear. Makeup artists have developed two methods of creating sweat on cue: spritzing mineral water over a layer of petroleum jelly and using the unadulterated water for “wet sweat.” Meat Loaf, who plays a fight club member who has “bitch tits,” wore a 100-pound fat harness that gave him large breasts. He also wore 20 cm lifts in his scenes with Norton to be taller than him.

Filming lasted 138 days from July to December 1998,[43] during which Fincher shot more than 1,500 reels of film, three times the average for a Hollywood film.[30] Filming locations were in and around Los Angeles and on sets built at the Century City studio.[43] Production designer Alex McDowell constructed more than 70 sets.[30] The exterior of Tyler Durden’s home was built in Wilmington, California, [44] while the interior was built on a soundstage at the studio’s site. The interior was given a derelict look to illustrate the deconstructed world of the characters.[43] Marla Singer’s apartment was based on photographs of downtown LA apartments. In total, the production included 300 scenes, 200 locations and complex special effects. Fincher compared Fight Club to his later, less complex film Panic Room: “I felt like I was spending all my time watching trucks being loaded and unloaded so I could shoot three lines of dialogue. There were far too many transports.”[ 45]

Cinematography[edit]

Fincher used the Super 35 format to film Fight Club as it gave him maximum flexibility in composing shots. He hired Jeff Cronenweth as cinematographer; Cronenweth’s father, Jordan Cronenweth, was a cinematographer for Fincher’s 1992 film Alien 3, but left the production mid-production due to Parkinson’s disease. Fincher explored visual styles in his earlier films Seven and The Game, and he and Cronenweth drew elements from those styles for Fight Club.

Fincher and Cronenweth employed a lurid style, opting to make people “kinda shiny”. The look of the Narrator’s scenes without Tyler was boring and realistic. The scenes with Tyler were described by Fincher as “more hyperreal in a ragged, deconstructed sense – a visual metaphor of what [the narrator] is headed for”. The filmmakers used heavily desaturated colors in costumes, makeup, and art direction.[43] Bonham Carter wore opalescent makeup to portray her romantic nihilistic character with a “smack devilish patina.” Fincher and Cronenweth were inspired by the 1973 film American Graffiti, which brought a mundane look to nocturnal outdoor spaces while also incorporating a variety of colors.

The crew used both natural and practical light. Fincher looked at different approaches to the lighting setups; For example, he chose several urban locations for the city light effects on the backgrounds of the shots. The crew also used fluorescent lighting in other convenient locations to maintain an element of reality and to illuminate the prosthetics representing the characters’ injuries.[43] On the other hand, Fincher also made sure the scenes weren’t so heavily lit so the characters’ eyes were less visible, citing cinematographer Gordon Willis’ technique as an influence.

Fight Club was shot primarily at night, and Fincher filmed the daytime shots in shady locations. The crew outfitted the bar’s basement with inexpensive work lamps to provide backlighting. Fincher eschewed stylish camerawork when filming early basement fight scenes, instead placing the camera in a fixed position. In later fight scenes, Fincher moved the camera from a distant observer’s point of view to that of the fighter.[43]

The scenes involving Tyler were staged to hide that the character was a mental projection of the unnamed narrator. Tyler was not filmed in two takes with a group of people, nor was he shown in any over-the-shoulder shots in scenes where Tyler gives the narrator specific ideas to manipulate him. In scenes before the narrator meets Tyler, the filmmakers inserted Tyler’s presence into frames for a subliminal effect. Tyler appears in the background and out of focus, like a “little devil on his shoulder”.[13] Fincher explained the subliminal frames: “Our hero creates Tyler Durden in his own mind, so he only exists on the periphery of the narrator’s consciousness at this point.”[46]

While Cronenweth generally reviewed and exhibited the Kodak footage on Fight Club, several other techniques were used to alter its appearance. Flash was used on much of the outdoor night shots, the contrast was stretched ugly on purpose, the print was adjusted to be underexposed, Technicolor’s ENR silver retention was used on a select number of prints to increase the density of blacks, and high-contrast print materials were chosen to create a “busted” look on the print with a dirty patina.

Visual effects[edit]

Fincher hired visual effects supervisor Kevin Tod Haug to work for him on The Game to create visual effects for Fight Club. Haug assigned the artists and visual effects experts to different facilities, each dealing with different types of visual effects: CG modeling, animation, compositing, and scanning. Haug explained, “We selected the best people for every aspect of the effects work and then coordinated their efforts. That way we never had to exploit a facility’s weaknesses.” Fincher visualized the narrator’s perspective through a “mental” view and structured a myopic framework for the film audience. Fincher also used pre-visualized footage of challenging main unit and visual effects shots as a problem-solving tool to avoid mistakes during the actual filming.[46]

Fight Club depicting the neural network of a brain where thought processes are initiated by the narrator’s fear impulse. The network was imaged with an L system and drawn by a medical illustrator.

The film’s title sequence is a 90-second visual effects composition that depicts the inside of the narrator’s brain at a microscopic level. the camera retreats outwards, starting at his fear center and following the thought processes triggered by his fear impulse. The partially Fincher-designed sequence was initially budgeted separately from the rest of the film, but the sequence was awarded by the studio in January 1999. Fincher hired Digital Domain and its visual effects supervisor Kevin Mack, who won an Academy Award for visual effects for the 1998 film What Dreams May Come, for the sequence. The company mapped the computer-generated brain using an L-system,[48] and the design was detailed using renderings by medical illustrator Katherine Jones. The pullback sequence from inside the brain to the outside of the skull involved neurons, action potentials, and a hair follicle. Haug erklärte die künstlerische Freiheit, die Fincher mit der Aufnahme erlangte: „Während er die Gehirnpassage wie eine Elektronenmikroskopfotografie aussehen lassen wollte, musste dieser Look mit dem Gefühl eines Nachttauchgangs gekoppelt werden – nass, beängstigend und mit geringer Tiefe des Feldes.” Die geringe Schärfentiefe wurde mit dem Raytracing-Verfahren erreicht.[46]

Zu den weiteren visuellen Effekten gehören eine frühe Szene, in der die Kamera an den Straßen der Stadt vorbeiblitzt, um die zerstörerische Ausrüstung von Project Mayhem zu untersuchen, die in Tiefgaragen liegt; Die Sequenz war eine dreidimensionale Komposition aus fast 100 Fotografien von Los Angeles und Century City des Fotografen Michael Douglas Middleton. Die letzte Szene des Abrisses der Kreditkartenbürogebäude wurde von Richard Baily von Image Savant entworfen; Baily arbeitete über vierzehn Monate in der Szene.[46]

In der Mitte des Films weist Tyler Durden das Publikum auf das Stichwort hin, das im Film den Spitznamen „Zigarettenbrand“ trägt. Die Szene stellt einen Wendepunkt dar, der den bevorstehenden Bruch und die Umkehrung der „ziemlich subjektiven Realität“ ankündigt, die früher im Film existierte. Fincher erklärt: “Plötzlich ist es, als hätte der Filmvorführer die Umstellung verpasst, die Zuschauer müssen anfangen, den Film ganz neu zu sehen.”[46]

Punktzahl [ bearbeiten ]

Fincher war besorgt, dass Bands mit Erfahrung im Schreiben von Filmmusiken die Themen nicht miteinander verbinden könnten, also suchte er eine Band, die noch nie für Film aufgenommen hatte. Er verfolgte Radiohead,[13] aber Sänger Thom Yorke lehnte ab, als er sich von dem Stress erholte, für ihr Album OK Computer zu werben.[49] Fincher beauftragte stattdessen das Breakbeat-Produzenten-Duo Dust Brothers, das eine postmoderne Partitur mit Drum-Loops, elektronischen Scratches und computerisierten Samples schuf. Der Darsteller von Dust Brothers, Michael Simpson, erklärte den Aufbau: „Fincher wollte mit allem rund um den Film neue Wege gehen, und eine nicht traditionelle Partitur half dabei, dies zu erreichen.“ [50] Der Höhepunkt und der Abspann enthalten den Song „Where Is My Mind?“. von den Pixies.[51]

release [edit]

marketing [edit]

Die Dreharbeiten endeten im Dezember 1998, und Fincher bearbeitete das Filmmaterial Anfang 1999, um Fight Club für eine Vorführung mit leitenden Angestellten vorzubereiten. Sie nahmen den Film nicht positiv auf und befürchteten, dass es kein Publikum für den Film geben würde.[52] Der ausführende Produzent Art Linson, der den Film unterstützte, erinnerte sich an die Reaktion: „So viele Fälle von Fight Club waren alarmierend, keine Gruppe von Führungskräften konnte sie eingrenzen.“ [53] Trotzdem sollte Fight Club ursprünglich im Juli 1999 erscheinen [54] wurde aber später auf den 6. August 1999 geändert. Das Studio verzögerte die Veröffentlichung des Films weiter, diesmal auf den Herbst, und verwies auf einen überfüllten Sommerplan und einen eiligen Postproduktionsprozess. Außenstehende schrieben die Verzögerungen dem Massaker an der Columbine High School Anfang des Jahres zu.[56]

Marketingleiter bei Fox Searchlight Pictures hatten Schwierigkeiten bei der Vermarktung von Fight Club und erwogen irgendwann, ihn als Kunstfilm zu vermarkten. Sie waren der Ansicht, dass sich der Film aufgrund seiner Gewalt hauptsächlich an ein männliches Publikum richtete, und glaubten, dass nicht einmal Pitt weibliche Kinobesucher anziehen würde. Recherchetests zeigten, dass der Film Teenager ansprach. Fincher weigerte sich, die Poster und Trailer auf Pitt zu konzentrieren, und ermutigte das Studio, die Werbefirma Wieden + Kennedy mit der Ausarbeitung eines Marketingplans zu beauftragen. Die Firma schlug ein Stück rosa Seife mit dem eingeprägten Titel “Fight Club” als Hauptmarketing-Bild des Films vor; Der Vorschlag wurde von Fox-Führungskräften als “schlechter Witz” angesehen. Fincher veröffentlichte auch zwei frühe Trailer in Form von gefälschten öffentlich-rechtlichen Ankündigungen, die von Pitt und Norton präsentiert wurden; Das Studio war der Meinung, dass die Trailer den Film nicht angemessen vermarkteten. Stattdessen finanzierte das Studio eine groß angelegte Kampagne in Höhe von 20 Millionen US-Dollar, um eine Presseparty, Poster, Werbetafeln und Trailer für das Fernsehen bereitzustellen, die die Kampfszenen des Films hervorhoben. Das Studio bewarb den Fight Club während der Sendungen der World Wrestling Federation über Kabel, wogegen Fincher protestierte und glaubte, dass die Platzierung den falschen Kontext für den Film geschaffen habe. Linson believed that the “ill-conceived one-dimensional” marketing by marketing executive Robert Harper largely contributed to Fight Club’s lukewarm box office performance in the United States.[57]

Theatrical run [ edit ]

The studio held Fight Club’s world premiere at the 56th Venice International Film Festival on September 10, 1999.[58][59] For the American theatrical release, the studio hired the National Research Group to test screen the film; the group predicted the film would gross between US$13 million and US$15 million in its opening weekend.[60] Fight Club opened commercially in the United States and Canada on October 15, 1999 and earned US$11 million in 1,963 theaters over the opening weekend.[2] The film ranked first at the weekend box office, defeating Double Jeopardy and The Story of Us, a fellow weekend opener.[61] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “B-” on an A+ to F scale.[62] The gender mix of audiences for Fight Club, argued to be “the ultimate anti-date flick”, was 61% male and 39% female; 58% of audiences were below the age of 21. Despite the film’s top placement, its opening gross fell short of the studio’s expectations.[63] Over the second weekend, Fight Club dropped 42.6% in revenue, earning US$6.3 million.[64] In its original theatrical run, the film grossed US$37 million in the United States and Canada, and US$63.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of US$100.9 million. (With subsequent re-releases, the film’s worldwide gross increased to $101.2 million.)[2] The underwhelming North American performance of Fight Club soured the relationship between 20th Century Fox’s studio head Bill Mechanic and media executive Rupert Murdoch, which contributed to Mechanic’s resignation in June 2000.[65]

The British Board of Film Classification reviewed Fight Club for its November 12, 1999 release in the United Kingdom and removed two scenes involving “an indulgence in the excitement of beating a (defenseless) man’s face into a pulp”. The board assigned the film an 18 certificate, limiting the release to adult-only audiences in the UK. The BBFC did not censor any further, considering and dismissing claims that Fight Club contained “dangerously instructive information” and could “encourage anti-social (behavior)”. The board decided, “The film as a whole is—quite clearly—critical and sharply parodic of the amateur fascism which in part it portrays. Its central theme of male machismo (and the anti-social behaviour that flows from it) is emphatically rejected by the central character in the concluding reels.”[66] The scenes were restored in a two-disc DVD edition released in the UK in March 2007.[67]

Home media [ edit ]

Fincher supervised the composition of the DVD packaging and was one of the first directors to participate in a film’s transition to home media. The film was released on DVD on June 6, 2000, in one and two-disc editions.[68] The movie disc included four commentary tracks,[69] while the bonus disc contained behind-the-scenes clips, deleted scenes, trailers, theater safety PSAs, the promotional music video “This is Your Life”, Internet spots, still galleries, cast biographies, storyboards, and publicity materials.[70] Fincher worked on the DVD as a way to finish his vision for the film. Julie Markell, 20th Century Fox’s senior vice president of creative development, said the DVD packaging complemented Fincher’s vision: “The film is meant to make you question. The package, by extension, tries to reflect an experience that you must experience for yourself. The more you look at it, the more you’ll get out of it.” The studio developed the packaging for two months.[71] The two-disc special edition DVD was packaged to look covered in brown cardboard wrapper. The title “Fight Club” was labeled diagonally across the front, and packaging appeared tied with twine. Markell said, “We wanted the package to be simple on the outside, so that there would be a dichotomy between the simplicity of brown paper wrapping and the intensity and chaos of what’s inside.”[71] Deborah Mitchell, 20th Century Fox’s vice president of marketing, described the design: “From a retail standpoint, [the DVD case] has incredible shelf-presence.”[72] It was the first DVD release to feature the THX Optimode.[73]

Fight Club won the 2000 Online Film Critics Society Awards for Best DVD, Best DVD Commentary, and Best DVD Special Features.[74] Entertainment Weekly ranked the film’s two-disc edition in first place on its 2001 list of “The 50 Essential DVDs”, giving top ratings to the DVD’s content and technical picture-and-audio quality.[75] When the two-disc edition went out of print, the studio re-released it in 2004 because of fans’ requests.[76] The film sold more than 6 million copies on DVD and video within the first ten years,[77] making it one of the largest-selling home media items in the studio’s history,[57] in addition to grossing over $55 million in video and DVD rentals.[78] With a weak box office performance in the United States and Canada, a better performance in other territories, and the highly successful DVD release, Fight Club generated a US$10 million profit for the studio.[57]

The Laserdisc edition was only released in Japan on May 26, 2000[79] and features a different cover art, as well as one of the very few Dolby Digital Surround EX soundtracks released on LD. The VHS edition was released on October 31, 2002, as a part of 20th Century Fox’s “Premiere Series” line. It includes a featurette after the film, “Behind the Brawl”.[80]

Fight Club was released in the Blu-ray Disc format in the United States on November 17, 2009.[81] Five graffiti artists were commissioned to create 30 pieces of art for the packaging, encompassing urban aesthetics found on the East Coast and West Coast of the United States as well as influences from European street art.[82] The Blu-ray edition opens with a menu screen for the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed starring Drew Barrymore before leading into the Fight Club menu screen. Fincher got permission from Barrymore to include the fake menu screen.[83]

An online release in China from Tencent censored the bomb blasts at the end and replaced the ending with a message that Project Mayhem was thwarted,[84] with Tyler Durden being arrested by law enforcement and placed in an insane asylum until 2012, adapting the ending of the original Fight Club novel.[85] Weeks later, Tencent released a version of the film restoring 11 of the 12 minutes that had previously been cut.[86][87]

Critical reception[ edit ]

When Fight Club premiered at the 56th Venice International Film Festival, the film was fiercely debated by critics. A newspaper reported, “Many loved and hated it in equal measures.” Some critics expressed concern that the film would incite copycat behavior, such as that seen after A Clockwork Orange debuted in Britain nearly three decades previously.[88] Upon the film’s theatrical release, The Times reported the reaction: “It touched a nerve in the male psyche that was debated in newspapers across the world.”[89] Although the film’s makers called Fight Club “an accurate portrayal of men in the 1990s,” some critics called it “irresponsible and appalling.” Writing for The Australian, Christopher Goodwin stated: “Fight Club is shaping up to be the most contentious mainstream Hollywood meditation on violence since Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.”[90]

Janet Maslin, reviewing for The New York Times, praised Fincher’s direction and editing of the film. She wrote that Fight Club carried a message of “contemporary manhood”, and that, if not watched closely, the film could be misconstrued as an endorsement of violence and nihilism.[91] Roger Ebert, reviewing for the Chicago Sun-Times, gave Fight Club two stars out of four, calling it “visceral and hard-edged”, but also “a thrill ride masquerading as philosophy”, whose promising first act is followed by a second that panders to macho sensibilities and a third he dismissed as “trickery”.[92] Ebert later acknowledged that the film was “beloved by most, not by me”.[93] He was later requested to have a shot-by-shot analysis of Fight Club at the Conference on World Affairs; he stated that “[s]eeing it over the course of a week, I admired its skill even more, and its thought even less.”[94] Jay Carr of The Boston Globe opined that the film began with an “invigoratingly nervy and imaginative buzz”, but that it eventually became “explosively silly”.[95] Newsweek’s David Ansen described Fight Club as “an outrageous mixture of brilliant technique, puerile philosophizing, trenchant satire and sensory overload” and thought that the ending was too pretentious.[96] Richard Schickel of Time described the mise en scène as dark and damp: “It enforces the contrast between the sterilities of his characters’ aboveground life and their underground one. Water, even when it’s polluted, is the source of life; blood, even when it’s carelessly spilled, is the symbol of life being fully lived. To put his point simply: it’s better to be wet than dry.” Schickel applauded the performances of Pitt and Norton, but criticized the “conventionally gimmicky” unfolding and the failure to make Bonham Carter’s character interesting.[97]

Cineaste’s Gary Crowdus reviewed the critical reception in retrospect: “Many critics praised Fight Club, hailing it as one of the most exciting, original, and thought-provoking films of the year.” He wrote of the negative opinion, “While Fight Club had numerous critical champions, the film’s critical attackers were far more vocal, a negative chorus which became hysterical about what they felt to be the excessively graphic scenes of fisticuffs … They felt such scenes served only as a mindless glamorization of brutality, a morally irresponsible portrayal, which they feared might encourage impressionable young male viewers to set up their own real-life fight clubs in order to beat each other senseless.”[98]

Fight Club was nominated for the 2000 Academy Award for Best Sound Editing, but it lost to The Matrix.[99] Bonham Carter won the 2000 Empire Award for Best British Actress.[100] The Online Film Critics Society also nominated Fight Club for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Norton), Best Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Uhls).[101] Though the film won none of the awards, the organization listed Fight Club as one of the top ten films of 1999.[102] The soundtrack was nominated for a BRIT Award, losing to Notting Hill.[103]

On Rotten Tomatoes, Fight Club holds an approval rating of 79% based on 180 reviews, with an average rating of 7.40/10. The site’s consensus reads, “Solid acting, amazing direction, and elaborate production design make Fight Club a wild ride.”[104] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100 based on 35 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”.[105]

Cultural impact [ edit ]

Fight Club was one of the most controversial and talked-about films of the 1990s.[21][106] The film was perceived as the forerunner of a new mood in American political life. Like other 1999 films Magnolia, Being John Malkovich, and Three Kings, Fight Club was recognized as an innovator in cinematic form and style, since it exploited new developments in filmmaking technology.[107] After Fight Club’s theatrical release, it became more popular via word of mouth,[108] and the positive reception of the DVD established it as a cult film that David Ansen of Newsweek conjectured would enjoy “perennial” fame.[109][110] The film’s success also heightened Palahniuk’s profile to global renown.[111]

Following Fight Club’s release, several fight clubs were reported to have started in the United States. A “Gentleman’s Fight Club” was started in Menlo Park, California, in 2000 and had members mostly from the tech industry.[112] Teens and preteens in Texas, New Jersey, Washington state, and Alaska also initiated fight clubs and posted videos of their fights online, leading authorities to break up the clubs. In 2006, an unwilling participant from a local high school was injured at a fight club in Arlington, Texas, and the DVD sales of the fight led to the arrest of six teenagers.[113] An unsanctioned fight club was also started at Princeton University, where matches were held on campus.[114] The film was suspected of influencing Luke Helder, a college student who planted pipe bombs in mailboxes in 2002. Helder’s goal was to create a smiley pattern on the map of the United States, similar to the scene in Fight Club in which a building is vandalized to have a smiley on its exterior.[115] On July 16, 2009, a 17-year-old who had formed his own fight club in Manhattan was charged with detonating a homemade bomb outside a Starbucks Coffee shop in the Upper East Side. The New York City Police Department reported the suspect was trying to emulate “Project Mayhem”.[116]

Fight Club had a significant impact on evangelical Christianity, in the areas of Christian discipleship and masculinity. A number of churches called their cell groups “fight clubs” with a stated purpose of meeting regularly to “beat up the flesh and believe the gospel of grace”.[117][118] Some churches, especially Mars Hill Church in Seattle, whose pastor Mark Driscoll was obsessed with the film,[119] picked up the film’s emphasis on masculinity, and rejection of self-care. Jessica Johnson suggests that Driscoll even called on “his brothers-in-arms to foment a movement not unlike Project Mayhem.”[120]

A Fight Club video game was released by Vivendi Universal Games in 2004 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and for mobile phones. The game was a critical and commercial failure, and was panned by such publications and websites as GameSpot, Game Informer, and IGN.[121][122][123] The video game Jet Set Radio, initially released in 2000 for Sega’s Dreamcast console, was inspired by the film’s anti-establishment themes.[124]

In 2003, Fight Club was listed as one of the “50 Best Guy Movies of All Time” by Men’s Journal.[125] In 2004 and 2006, Fight Club was voted by Empire readers as the eighth and tenth greatest film of all time, respectively.[126][127] Total Film ranked Fight Club as “The Greatest Film of our Lifetime” in 2007 during the magazine’s tenth anniversary.[128] In 2007, Premiere selected Tyler Durden’s line, “The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club,” as the 27th greatest movie line of all time.[129] In 2008, readers of Empire ranked Tyler Durden eighth on a list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters.[130] Empire also identified Fight Club as the 10th greatest movie of all time in its 2008 issue The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.[131]

In 2010, two viral mash-up videos featuring Fight Club were released. Ferris Club was a mash-up of Fight Club and the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It portrayed Ferris as Tyler Durden and Cameron as the narrator, “claiming to see the real psychological truth behind the John Hughes classic”.[132] The second video Jane Austen’s Fight Club also gained popularity online as a mash-up of Fight Club’s fighting rules and the characters created by 19th-century novelist Jane Austen.[133]

Oncology Seminar Series – Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center

Home ▸ Research ▸ Oncological seminar series

Oncological seminar series

The seminar series of the Department of Oncology and the large oncology rounds take place every Friday at 12 noon in the spring and autumn semester. Both clinical and basic cancer researchers who are leaders in their field are invited to present their work and also participate in a PhD student journal club presentation. Guest speakers typically have time to meet with faculty members at various times throughout the day. Please contact the person sponsoring the speaker if you would like to request a meeting with the speaker. It is possible that these seminars will automatically appear in your calendar. The link below provides instructions for subscribing to the Oncology Seminar Series calendar. This calendar also lists the special seminars and mini-symposiums that sometimes replace the oncology seminar.

Upcoming speaker profiles

Profiles of previous speakers

May 6, 2022

Alejandro Villagra, Ph.D.

LCCC

“Reprogramming macrophages into health and disease”

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

The areas of expertise of Dr. Villagra are tumor immunology and epigenetics. During his scientific career he has explored the role of epigenetic modifiers in modulating signaling pathways that control the phenotype and function of immune and cancer cells. His study models were diverse and included multiple solid tumors and hematological malignancies. Overall, his current research areas focus on identifying and characterizing the immunomodulatory role of HDACs and other epigenetic modifiers in myeloid and lymphoid cells. A particular focus of his research is the discovery and evaluation of new selective small molecule inhibitors capable of selectively controlling the activity of epigenetic modifiers in immune and cancer cells, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the antitumor immune response. His experimental approaches have significant translational components, including syngeneic animal and patient-derived xenograft models, giving him the opportunity to extend his investigations into the clinical realm. These special qualities allow his research to receive continuous feedback and to focus goals on the relevant biomedical aspects of my scientific endeavors. In addition, he has received funding from various sources during his scientific career, including governments (NIH), foundations (MRF), and private industry (several pharmaceuticals). Ongoing research funding includes a recently granted R01, the National Science Foundation, and intramural funds.

04/29/2022

Ellen Pure, Ph.D.

University of Pennsylvania

“Implications of Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity of Stromal Cells and Matrix Remodeling for Progression and Treatment of Solid Tumors”

Sponsor: Dr. Marc Lippman

Ellen Pure, Ph.D. Grace Lansing Lambert is Professor and Chair of Biomedical Sciences and Professor of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania. dr Puré received her bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis and her doctorate from the University of Texas-Southwestern Medical School. She was educated as a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Postdoctoral Fellow and Special Fellow of the Leukemia Society and then joined the faculty at Rockefeller University. In 1992 Dr. Puré moved to Philadelphia, where she served on the faculty of the Wistar Institute before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. dr Puré is associate director of the Cancer Research Institute and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Matrix Biology and is the founding editor of Cancer Immunology Research. The research of dr. Puré focuses on the cellular and molecular basis of inflammation and fibrosis. She investigates fundamental mechanisms involved in these processes and the contribution of these processes to fibrotic diseases and cancer. Her laboratory has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the role of stromal cells and extracellular matrix remodeling in tissue fibrosis and cancer risk, initiation, progression and metastasis. Her laboratory is developing novel therapeutic approaches for the targeted treatment of fibrosis and cancer in the stroma.

In 2019 Dr. Puré named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

April 22, 2022

Anita Kinney, Ph.D.

Rutgers University

“Approaching Accurate Cancer Prevention and Treatment with a Fair Perspective”

Patron: Dr. Marc Schwartz

Anita Y. Kinney, PhD, RN, FAAN, joined Rutgers University School of Public Health in 2018 as Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology and Director of the Center for Cancer Health Equity. Kinney is also Associate Director of Cancer Health Equity and Engagement at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. She has been an actively funded researcher in the field of cancer prevention and control for more than 25 years with a focus on behavioral, social and genetic research. Her research brings a combination of behavioral, clinical, and epidemiological perspectives to address unsolved problems of cancer prevention and control in diverse populations and settings. In her role at Rutgers Cancer Institute, Kinney strives to advance cancer equity in cancer prevention and care through community partnerships, outreach and a scientific team approach. Her vision is to develop and maintain strong community partnerships that work with the efforts of cancer center faculty members and ensure that the most vulnerable people in New Jersey are included in population science, clinical and translational research efforts.

Since 1986, Kinney has authored or co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications. She serves on a number of external scientific advisory boards for major cancer centers nationwide and is a member of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Care Steering Committee and a National Institutes of Health Studies Division. She is also Senior Editor of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Society of Integrative Oncology.

After 30 years of returning to her native New Jersey, Kinney never misses a trip back to the ski slopes of Utah. She also enjoys dancing, playing tennis, spending time with her family and her dog Scooter.

April 1, 2022

David L, Ph.D.

LCCC

“A Public Health Model of a Ban on Menthol Cigarettes and Implications for a Flavor Ban on E-Cigarettes”

Sponsor: Dr. Christopher Loffredo

David Levy is Professor of Oncology at Georgetown University at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has published more than 300 articles in a variety of professional publications and more than 15,000 citations.

Much of this work involves modeling the impact of consumption patterns, public policies, and cost-effectiveness analysis on rates of substance abuse and related deaths, including issues related to tobacco, alcohol control policies, obesity, and road safety. Earlier in his career he published on competition and industrial organization issues

dr Levy was chief examiner of grants from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Bloomberg/Gates Foundation, the EU and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Among his current grants and contracts, he is currently a principal investigator of an FDA/NIH Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science (TCORS) and NIH grants to the ITC to model tobacco control policies in 6 countries and to NCI CISNET to model the effects of smoking and vaping on cancer deaths.

dr Levy currently oversees the design and development of the SimSmoke tobacco control policy simulation model. He has developed models for 20 US states and more than 60 countries. He has also developed models that include smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes and has developed a new simplified model (SAVM) to account for e-cigarette and smoking trends and implications.

March 18, 2022

Crystal Mackall, MD

University at Stanford

“CAR-T Cells for Solid Cancers: A Way Forward”

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

Crystal Mackall is the Ernest and Amelia Gallo Family Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Stanford University. She is founding director of the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy, associate director of the Stanford Cancer Institute, director of the Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Program, and director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Stanford. During a 27-year tenure at NCI, culminating as Chief of the Division of Immunology and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Oncology, and now at Stanford, she has led an internationally recognized translational research program that combines fundamental tumor immunology, translational science and early clinical trials immune-based includes therapies for cancer. Her group was one of the first to show impressive activity of CD19-CAR in pediatric leukemia (Lancet 2015), developed a novel clinically active CD22-CAR, which due to its impressive activity in leukemia and recently in lymphoma (Nat Med 2018, J Clin Onc 2021, Blood 2022). Her group has identified T-cell exhaustion as a key feature limiting CAR-T cell activity (Nat Med 2015) and developed the first exhaustion-resistance (Nature 2019) and exhaustion-reversal (Science 2021) platforms. Recently, her group demonstrated preclinical efficacy of CARs in pediatric diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (Nat Med 2018) and impressive clinical activity of GD2-CAR T cells in this disease (Nature 2022). Their work has both advanced understanding of basic immunology and translated that understanding into the treatment of human disease. She is a co-inventor on dozens of pending patents and has founded three biotechnology companies focused on cellular immunotherapies (Lyell Immunopharma, Syncotation Life Sciences and Link Cell Therapies). She has held numerous national leadership positions, including co-lead of the NCI U54 Pediatric Immunotherapy Discovery and Development Network, and has received numerous awards, including the Richard V Smalley Award from the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, the AACR-St. Baldrick’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Pediatric Cancer Research and multiple NIH Director’s Awards. She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the American Academy of Physicians and is Board Certified in Pediatrics, Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and Internal Medicine.

March 11, 2022

Daniel Belsky, Ph.D.

University of Columbia

“Quantification of biological aging”

Patron: Dr. Jeanne Mandelblatt

Dan Belsky is an assistant professor at the Butler Columbia Aging Center (new window) and in the Department of Epidemiology (new window) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He was an Early-Career Fellow of the Jacobs Foundation and is currently a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Child Brain Development Network and the PROMENTA Center at the University of Oslo. Dan works at the intersection of social and behavioral sciences, genomics and public health. His focus in recent years has been on the development and evaluation of methods for quantifying the biological aging process in young, middle-aged and elderly people and the application of these methods to (1) investigate how life history and social factors contribute to individual differences in healthy aging at; and (2) whether and how aging processes can be modified through interventions. With collaborators Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, he developed the Pace of Aging method to quantify the aging process from longitudinal analysis of human physiology and recently translated this method into a DNA methylation blood test that can be implemented from a single point of data collection. He is principal investigator on NIH-funded projects to generate multi-omics databases for the randomized CALERIE trial and the Dutch Hunger Winter Family Study to test how calorie restriction and early developmental disability may affect biological aging. His projects supported by the Foundation and Columbia include studies of how social determinants of health affect biological aging and the potential geroprotective effects of social policy interventions. He has been an ISI High-Cited Researcher since 2020.

March 4, 2022

Alexander Gusev, Ph.D.

Dana Farber

“Using off-target reads from thousands of sequenced tumors to identify germline-somatic interactions affecting patient outcomes”

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

dr Gusev’s research focuses on developing statistical methods to understand the genetic architecture of cancer, uncovering biological risk mechanisms and identifying clinically actionable treatment biomarkers. He has authored several articles focusing on the integration of Cancer Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) with population-scale gene expression and alternative splicing to identify susceptibility genes, including the development of methods for performing Transcriptome-Wide Association Studies (TWAS; Gusev et al 2016 natural genetics). His lab led the integration of extensive germline and somatic sequencing data with clinical outcomes at Dana-Farber to identify novel germline-somatic interactions and predictors of therapy response and toxicities.

February 25, 2022

Elana Ready, Ph.D.

Johns Hopkins

“Pattern recognition for precision cancer immunotherapy from spatial profiling and single-cell data”

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

dr Ready directs an NCI-funded hybrid computational and experimental laboratory in the systems biology of cancer and therapeutic response. Her wet laboratory develops time-course models of therapeutic resistance and carries out the development of single-cell technologies. Her computational methods combine mathematical modeling and artificial intelligence to determine the biomarkers and molecular mechanisms of therapeutic resistance from cross-platform genomic data. These techniques have broad applicability beyond their resistance models, including in particular analysis of clinical biosamples, developmental biology and neuroscience.

dr Done is Associate Professor of Oncology and Director of the Division/Research Program in Quantitative Sciences, Co-Director of the Convergence Institute and Associate Director of Quantitative Sciences at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. She has part-time jobs in biomedical engineering and applied mathematics and statistics, is a member of the Institute of Computational Medicine, the Center for Computational Genomics, Machine Learning, the Mathematical Institute for Data Science and the Center for Computational Biology, and is Daniel Nathan’s Scientific Innovator. Before getting into computational cancer biology, Dr. Done NASA Numerical Weather Prediction Research Fellow. The research of dr. Done is featured as a PI and Co-I in over eighty peer-reviewed publications, R/Bioconductor packages, and a competitive financing portfolio. In particular, she led the team that won the HPN-DREAM8 algorithm to predict phospho-proteomic trajectories from therapeutic response in cancer cells. She serves on the editorial boards of the preeminent computational biology journals PLoS Computational Biology, Cell Systems, ImmunoInformatics, and is a study section member for the study sections of NCI Systems Biology, NCI Informatics Technology for Cancer Research, and the Israel Cancer Research Fund.

February 18, 2022

Matthew Ellis, MD, Ph.D.

Baylor

“Advancing Precision Oncology in Breast Cancer”

Sponsor: Dr. Marc Lippman

As director of the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center, Dr. Ellis is an interdisciplinary team of oncologists, pathologists, epidemiologists, basic scientists and statisticians focused on improving our ability to prevent, detect and treat breast cancer. He brings to this position significant experience overseeing and executing large projects and protocols of a collaborative nature on a nationwide basis. He has a strong background in molecular cell biology, molecular pharmacology, genomics and proteomics. He has been an active member of the Breast Cancer Intergroup of North America (TCBI) (now NCTN) since 1998 and co-chairs the Translational Medicine Committee of the NRG Collaborative Group. He was also co-leader of the breast project The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), where he established collaborations with multiple genome centers for massive parallel sequencing of breast cancer (Nature 2010, 2012). While at Washington University in St. Louis, he served as Co-PI for the second phase Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC2) grant. During CPTAC2, he established collaborative interactions with the Broad Institute that resulted in several publications on proteogenomic analysis of breast cancer (Nature2016, Cell 2020 in press). He is also a U01-funded principal investigator in CPTAC3, where he continues to translate proteogenomic insights to improve the diagnosis and treatment of breast and other cancers. Finally, he is Baylor College of Medicine Principal Investigator on Breast Cancer SPORE.

February 4, 2022

Nina Kadan-Lottick, MD

LCCC

“Childhood Cancer Survivors Across the Lifespan”

Sponsor: Dr. Kenneth Tercyak

Nina Kadan-Lottick, MD, MSPH, is a professor of oncology and pediatrics, a member of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control Program, Director of the Survivorship Research Initiative, and Georgetown/Medstar PI for Children’s Oncology Group Clinical Trials. dr Kadan-Lottick is a pediatric hematologist, oncologist and researcher who has focused her work on improving long-term medical, cognitive and psychosocial outcomes in children, adolescents and young adults with cancer throughout the lifespan. She is currently the PI of two randomized controlled trials funded by the National Cancer Institute’s Moonshot Initiative to improve physical activity and adherence to recommended monitoring for late-complication of therapy in childhood, adolescent and young adult cancer survivors . dr Kadan-Lottick is currently elected to the Board of Directors of the Children’s Oncology Group and serves on the Survivorship Steering Committee and the Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Steering Committee. She is a co-author of the Children’s Oncology Group Long-Term Follow-up Guidelines and the International Harmonization of Long-Term Follow-up Guidelines.

January 28, 2022

Ralph J. DeBerardins, MD, Ph.D.

UT Southwest

“Metabolic reprogramming in human cancer”

Sponsor: Dr. Louis Weiner

dr Ralph DeBerardinis joined the faculty of UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2008 and joined UTSW’s Children’s Medical Center Research Institute (CRI) shortly after its inception in 2012. He is Chief of Pediatric Genetics and Metabolism at UTSW and Director of the Genetic and Metabolic Diseases Program at CRI. dr DeBerardinis is an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and has received numerous awards including the William K. Bowes, Jr. Award in Medical Genetics, the Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute, Edith and Peter from the Academy of Medicine, Engineering & Science of Texas O’Donnell Award in Medicine and the Paul Marks Award for Cancer Research from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and the Association of American Physicians.

The laboratory of Dr. DeBerardinis studies the role of altered metabolic pathways in human diseases, including cancer and inborn errors of metabolism in children. The lab has pioneered the use of metabolomics and isotope tracking to characterize disease-associated metabolic states directly in patients and use disease-related model systems to study how metabolic disorders contribute to tissue disorders. The DeBerardinis lab’s work has led to new insights into disease mechanisms in numerous metabolic diseases, including by defining unexpected fuel preferences in human cancer and uncovering new metabolic vulnerabilities in cancer cells.

dr DeBerardinis received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia before earning an M.D. and Ph.D. Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed his postgraduate clinical training at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in pediatrics, medical genetics, and clinical biochemical genetics. Before joining UT Southwestern, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Penn Cancer Center.

January 21, 2022

David J Robbins, Ph.D.

LCCC

“Fighting colorectal cancer with Wnt inhibitors”

Sponsor: Dr. Louis Weiner

The thesis of Dr. Robbins was born in the Department of Pharmacology at UT-Southwestern Medical School with Dr. Melanie Cobb performed. During this time, his work focused on the role played by MAP kinases in growth regulation and eventually identified these kinases as effectors of the Ras family of oncogenes. He then moved to UCSF to work with Nobel laureate Dr. J. Michael Bishop to work on the emerging role of developmental signaling pathways in cancer biology. This work evolved into a research program focused on elucidating the signaling pathway of the morphogen hedgehog (Hh). This new focus, combined with his expertise in biochemistry and new interest in genetics, led to the discovery of a new paradigm in signaling where a molecular motor regulates a signaling pathway. In recognition of this work, he was awarded the Burroughs-Welcome Foundation Career Development Award. His lab is currently focused on elucidating the role played by Sonic Hedgehog and Wnt signaling networks in cancer, as they affect the mortality and morbidity of a large number of people diagnosed with this deadliest of diseases. His lab is focused on understanding the role of Wnt signaling in colorectal cancer and the role of Sonic Hedgehog signaling in medulloblastoma, identifying rate-limiting components in these networks, and attempting to treat them with drugs. He has been an independent researcher for over 20 years and has published one hundred and seventeen manuscripts on various aspects of cancer-related signaling pathways. He has served as a PI on numerous NIH and Foundation grants and successfully renewed many of them. He also has a track record of being a collaborator, serving as a co-investigator or significant staff on more team-based approaches. He is currently Professor (pending) in the Department of Oncology and co-director of the Molecular and Translational Oncology Program at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

December 17, 2021

Kornelia Polyak, MD

Harvard

“Breast Cancer Evolution”

Sponsors: Dr. Joyce Slingerland, Dr. Marc Lippman

Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and an internationally recognized leader in breast cancer research. The laboratory of Dr. Polyak is dedicated to the molecular analysis of human breast cancer with the aim of improving the clinical management of breast cancer patients. Her lab has put a lot of effort into developing new ways of studying tumors as a whole and applying interdisciplinary approaches. With these methods, the laboratory of Dr. Polyak led studies to analyze purified cell populations from normal and neoplastic human breast tissue at the genomic level and in situ at the single-cell level, and to apply mathematical and ecological models to better understand breast tumor development. She has also been successful in clinically translating her findings, including testing the efficacy of JAK2 and BET bromodomain inhibitors for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer in clinical trials. dr Polyak has received numerous awards, including the 2011 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research, the 2012 AACR Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research, and the 2016 Rosalind Franklin Award. She was elected a Fellow of the AAAS in 2019 and the AACR Academy of Fellows in 2020. She also received the 2015 NCI Outstanding Investigator Award and received the 2020 Distinguished Alumna Award from Weil-Cornell.

December 10, 2021

Richard Kriwacki, Ph.D.

St Jude

“Roles of Phase Separation in Biology and Disease”

Sponsor: Dr. Jeffrey Toretsky

Richard William Kriwacki received a B.S. Degree in Chemistry and M.S. Degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences/Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Connecticut. He then worked as an NMR spectroscopist at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals in Ridgefield, Connecticut. During the latter years of this tenure, he was also appointed as a Research Affiliate in the Chemistry Department at Yale University in the lab of Professor James Prestegard; the research area was protein NMR spectroscopy. This experience inspired Mr. Kriwacki to enter Yale’s graduate program in chemistry/biophysics, where he received his Ph.D. His doctoral thesis dealt with the structure and function of the transcription factor Sp1. He then conducted postdoctoral studies with Dr. Peter E. Wright at the Scripps Research Institute (1994-1997) looking at proteins in the p53 tumor suppressor pathway. During these studies, he discovered that the p53-regulated cell cycle inhibitor p21 was a disordered protein that folded upon binding to cyclin-dependent kinase/cyclin complexes, thereby inhibiting cell division. These findings introduced the concept of functional, intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and paved the way for Dr. Kriwaki. In the fall of 1997 he joined the Department of Structural Biology at St. Jude. Since then he has studied the roles of IDPs in various biological processes and diseases and more recently in liquid-liquid phase separation related to nucleolar function and aberrant transcription driven by fusion oncoproteins.

December 3, 2021

Katherine Crew, MD

University of Columbia

“Removing Barriers to Breast Cancer Chemoprevention: Opportunities for Implementation in Clinical Practice”

Sponsor: Dr. Kenneth Tercyak

dr Katherine Crew is Associate Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Director of the Clinical Breast Cancer Prevention Program at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. She completed all of her medical training at Columbia University and currently works as a Medical Oncologist in the Department of Hematology and Oncology with expertise in breast cancer. She is also a medical researcher and is funded by the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. dr Crew conducts research on breast cancer chemoprevention in high-risk women and is identifying modifiable risk biomarkers that can predict breast cancer risk and response to chemopreventive agents. She was PI or co-investigator of several early-stage breast cancer chemoprevention studies, including a multicenter randomized controlled trial of high-dose vitamin D in premenopausal women at high risk of breast cancer, SWOG 0812, with change in mammographic density as the primary outcome. She is currently leading two Multi-PI R01 grants to improve breast cancer chemoprevention using health information technology, including SWOG 1904, Making Informed Choices On Incorporating Chemoprevention into Care (MiCHOICE). She is currently Executive Officer for the SWOG Prevention, Survival and Palliative Care Committees, Chair of the NCI Cancer Prevention and Control Central IRB, and a permanent member of the NCI Cancer Prevention Study Section.

November 12, 2021

Caryn Lerman, PhD

University of Southern California

“Precision Therapy for Nicotine Dependence”

Patron: Dr. Marc Schwartz

dr Caryn Lerman is Director of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Associate Dean of Cancer Programs, and H. Leslie and Elaine S. Hoffman Cancer Research Chair at USC’s Keck School of Medicine. She is recognized for her cancer prevention research that bridges the fields of neuroscience, genomics, pharmacology and population science. Ein wichtiger verbindender Schwerpunkt ihrer Forschung ist die biologisch orientierte Wissenschaft zur Verringerung des Krebsrisikoverhaltens. Diese Arbeit hat neue Untersuchungsrichtungen hervorgebracht, darunter: die Verhaltensepidemiologie von genetischen Anfälligkeitstests für Krebs; pharmakogenomische Ansätze zur Tabakabhängigkeit, die zur ersten prospektiven stratifizierten pharmakogenomischen Studie in diesem Bereich führten; und neurowissenschaftlich basierte Interventionen zur Verringerung der Tabakabhängigkeit.

Als gewähltes Mitglied der National Academy of Medicine war Dr. Lerman Mitglied des NCI Board of Scientific Advisors, des National Human Genome Research Advisory Council und des National Institutes on Drug Abuse Advisory Council. Sie ist die derzeitige Präsidentin der Association of American Cancer Institutes und ehemalige Präsidentin der Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. Zu den weiteren Auszeichnungen und Ehrungen zählen der American Cancer Society Cancer Control Award, der American Society of Preventive Oncology Joseph Cullen Award, der Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Health, der NIH Matilda White Riley Award und der Los Angeles Business Journal Award for Women Leaders in Gesundheitspflege.

Vor ihrer Ernennung zur Direktorin des USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, stellvertretende Dekanin für Krebsprogramme und H. Leslie und Elaine S. Hoffman Cancer Research Chair an der Keck School of Medicine der USC war Dr. Lerman Senior Deputy Director des Abramson Cancer Center und Prodekan für strategische Initiativen an der Perelman School of Medicine an der University of Pennsylvania.

October 29, 2021

Jeffrey Rathmell, PhD

Vanderbilt

„Treibstoff für T-Zellen: Immunmetabolische Checkpoints bei Krebs und Entzündung“

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

dr Rathmell untersucht Mechanismen, die das Schicksal und die Differenzierung von Lymphozyten bei entzündlichen Erkrankungen und Krebs regulieren. Er hat ein interdisziplinäres Forschungsprogramm mit Schwerpunkt auf genetischen und biochemischen Ansätzen zur Entdeckung von Mechanismen des Immunstoffwechsels, die immunbedingte Krankheiten antreiben oder beeinflussen. Nach einer Promotion in Immunologie an der Stanford University und einem Postdoc-Studium an der University of Pennsylvania zeigte seine Arbeit als Fakultät an der Duke University und der Vanderbilt University, dass der Stoffwechsel von Lymphozyten dynamisch reguliert wird und dass jede T-Zell-Untergruppe ein spezifisches Stoffwechselprogramm annimmt, das dies kann zielgerichtet sein, um die Zellfunktion und das Schicksal zu modulieren. Er kam 2015 zu Vanderbilt, um das Vanderbilt Center for Immunobiology zu leiten, und ist Leiter des Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center Program in Host-Tumor Interactions. His awards include Scholar of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Bernard Osher Fellow of the American Asthma Foundation, and William Paul Distinguished Innovator of the Lupus Research Alliance.

October 22nd, 2021

Charles Perou, PhD

University of North California

“Quantitative Medicine for Breast Cancer Patients”

Sponsor: Dr. Marc Lippman and Dr. Joyce Slingerland

Breast cancer is a prevalent disease with known clinical and molecular diversity. To address these challenges, Dr Perou’s research uses a multidisciplinary approach based upon genomics, genetics, cancer biology, bioinformatics, epidemiology, and clinical research to improve the outcomes of cancer patients. A major contribution of his work has been the discovery of the intrinsic subtypes of breast cancer. He demonstrated that breast cancers can be divided into at least five molecular subtypes using the “PAM50” assay, with his lab focusing experimental attention on the Basal-like subtype, which represents >80% of Triple Negative Breast Cancers. His team has discovered many of the genetic causes of each molecular subtype, modeled these events in Mouse Models, and then used these models to investigate tumor biology, immune system interactions, and the efficacy of novel drug combinations. They have also translated these molecular finding into the human population using a North Carolina population-based study (i.e. Carolina Breast Cancer Study), where they found that African Americans were diagnosed with Basal-like Breast Cancers approximately twice as often as those of European decent. These studies have provided insights into the causes of the racial outcomes disparities differences seen in the USA.

He has authored more than 450 peer-reviewed articles, and has been named an inventor on multiple USA and European patents. He is currently the Co-Director of the Computational Medicine Program, Faculty Director of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center (LCCC) Bioinformatics Group, and Co-Leader of the LCCC Breast Cancer Research Program at UNC. He is also a member of the ALLIANCE Breast Committee, and Executive Steering Committee Member of the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC). He has co-founded 3 biotechnology companies (Bioclassifier, GeneCentric Therapeutics, and Reveal Genomics), all of which are focused on using genomic assays to make improvements for personalized patient care.

His training history includes a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Bates College, a PhD in Experimental Pathology from the University of Utah, and postdoctoral work in the laboratory of David Botstein (then at Stanford University). He has won a number of awards including the AACR Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research, the Danaher Scientific and Medical Award, the European Institute of Oncology Breast Cancer Therapy Award, the Jill Rose Award for Distinguished Biomedical Research from BCRF, the Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction from Komen, and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Association of American Cancer Institutes. Lastly, he has been named a Thomson Reuters Most Highly Cited Researcher in 2014-20, where his work has received more than 200,000 total citations according to Google Scholar.

October 15th, 2021

Rachel Rosenstein, MD, PhD

Hackensack

“Pathogenesis of sclerotic chronic graft-versus-host disease.”

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

Rachel K. Rosenstein, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, in the Dermatology Division, at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine’s Center for Discovery and Innovation, with a clinical and research interest in oncodermatology, investigating and treating the cutaneous concerns of oncology patients.

She is a graduate of Princeton University, where she majored in Molecular Biology. She completed a PhD in Immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine in the laboratory of Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov and an MD in 2013, cum laude, receiving the MD/PhD Thesis Prize for her work examining innate immune sensing of allergens. She completed an internship in Internal Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Dermatology residency at NYU Langone Medical Center. She pursued a clinical and translational research fellowship at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases where she developed an interest in cutaneous graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and cutaneous immune-related adverse events from checkpoint inhibitors.

October 1st, 2021

Yi Zhang, MD, PhD

Hackensack CDI

“Alloimmunity, anti-tumor effects, dendritic cells and epigenetic regulation”

Sponsor: Dr. David Perlin

dr Yi Zhang is a director, member scientist at Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI), Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. dr Zhang was awarded his MD and PhD degree from The University of Tokyo (Japan, 1998) and completed his postdoctoral training at The University of Pennsylvania (2003). dr Zhang was a professor with tenure at Temple University and very recently joined CDI from September 1, 2021.

dr Zhang has long-term interest in understanding of pathophysiology of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in the setting of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), and epigenetic regulation of alloimmunity and tumor immunity. Specifically, Dr. Zhang has discovered the importance of dendritic cells (DCs) and DC expressing the Notch ligand delta-like ligand 4 (Dll4) in the regulation of alloreactive T cell responses and GVHD. dr Zhang also introduced the concept of alloantigen-sensitized stem cell memory T cells (TSCM) in sustaining alloreactive T cell responses and GVHD (Nat Med 2005). This concept of TSCM stimulates many other groups to develop novel strategies for improving the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy, including CAR-T cell therapy. Building on these studies, Dr. Zhang has developed a research program to investigate the epigenetic mechanisms that control the generation, maintenance and function of antigen-driven T cells. For example, Dr. Zhang identified that inhibition of T cell Ezh2, which catalyzes histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation, reduces GVHD in mice undergoing allo-HSCT. His studies also illuminate the crucial role of Ezh2 in regulating memory T cells and their anti-tumor immunity. dr Zhang’s laboratory has made a continuous stream of novel fundamental contributions in GVHD and T cell tumor immunity. Currently, Zhang and his colleagues are developing novel and clinically relevant approaches to modulate alloimmunity and to improve the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy, including: 1) establishment a cellular therapy strategy to program donor T cells that preserve potent anti-leukemia activity without causing severe GVHD using both DLL4+ DCs and plasmacytoid DCs; 2) development of a new approach of destabilizing T cell Ezh2 protein using pharmacological inhibitors to modulate alloimmunity; and 3) discovery of novel epigenetic drugs (e.g., targeting CDK9, CDK7, DOT1L and DNMTs, etc.) that can reduce tumor resistance to CAR-T cell therapy to improve the efficacy of immunotherapy for solid tumor.

September 24th, 2021

John Groopman, PhD

Hopkins

“Transitions of the Etiology of Human Liver Cancer: 3rd Leading Cause of Cancer Death in 2021”

Sponsor: Dr. Christopher Loffredo

dr John Groopman is the Edyth H. Schoenrich Professor of Preventive Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Associate Director for Population Sciences at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in the School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was also a post-doctoral fellow at MIT. He received further training as a staff fellow at the National Cancer Institute in the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis. Prior to coming to Johns Hopkins in 1989, Dr. Groopman was the Associate Dean at the Boston University School of Public Health. dr Groopman’s main research interests involve the development and application of molecular biomarkers of exposure, dose and effect from environmental carcinogens. The environmental carcinogens studied include agents that are naturally occurring in the diet. A major emphasis of the research has been in the elucidation of the role of aflatoxins, a common contaminate of the food supply, in the induction of liver cancer in high-risk populations living in Asia and Africa. This work has led to the identification of a very strong chemical-viral interaction between aflatoxin and the human hepatitis B virus in the induction of liver cancer. These biomarkers have also been used in many collaborative molecular epidemiology studies of liver cancer risk and recently employed to assess the efficacy of a number of chemopreventive agents in trials in high-risk aflatoxin-hepatitis B virus exposed populations. This research is now being extended to develop genetic biomarkers of p53 mutations in human samples as early detection of disease biomarkers using a novel mass spectroscopy-based method for genotyping developed in the laboratory. The most cited research publication from this research was the finding from a prospective cohort of over 18,000 people in Shanghai that established for the first time a viral-chemical interaction essential to the etiology of liver cancer, a leading cause of cancer death in the world. This work has led to the collaborative chemoprevention trials in China. Collectively, Dr. Groopman’s expertise involves the biological consequences of exposures to mycotoxins and other environmental contaminates on human health. Thus, the research in our laboratory, resulting in over 320 peer-reviewed publications and chapters, focuses on the translation of mechanistic research to public health-based prevention strategies. dr Groopman also served as a member of the National Advisory Council for the NIEHS and numerous other committees at the national and international level. Thus, Dr. Groopman has a long-standing record of commitment to interdisciplinary and translational research in oncology and public health. Finally, in recognition of his contributions to cancer prevention efforts, Dr. Groopman was the recipient of the 2010 American Association for Cancer Research – Prevent Cancer Foundation Award for Excellence in Cancer Prevention Research and the gave the Ronald Herberman Memorial Lecture for National Cancer Prevention Day in 2016. In 2021, Dr. Groopman was appointed to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – Committee on Toxicology for a three-year term.

September 17th, 2021

Daniel Hertz, PharmD, Ph.D.

University of Michigan

“Efforts Towards Universal Implementation of DYPD Testing”

Sponsor: Dr. Sandra Swain

dr Hertz is an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy. dr Hertz received his PharmD from Rutgers University and PhD from University of North Carolina for his dissertation research on pharmacogenetic predictors of taxane-induced neuropathy. dr Hertz’s current research is interested in developing tools for individualizing treatment in patients with cancer and translating them into clinical practice. He has particular interests in optimal dosing of paclitaxel and using DPYD genotype to optimize fluoropyrimidine chemotherapy. dr Hertz has several other ongoing projects to discover and translate genetic variants that affect cancer treatment outcomes, in collaborations with medical oncologists at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center and within SWOG.

September 10th, 2021

Nagi Ayad, Ph.D.

Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center

“Defining Efficacy and Resistance Mechanisms of Brain Cancer”

Sponsor: Dr. Louis Weiner

Nagi G. Ayad, Ph.D. is a Professor (pending) in the Department of Oncology of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center. dr Ayad received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University in 1992, worked for Merck & Co., Inc. as a biochemist and then pursued graduate studies with Dr. Ira Mellman at Yale University. dr Ayad completed his Ph.D. in Cell Biology in 1998 and moved to Harvard Medical School in 1999 to perform a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Marc Kirschner. dr Ayad then joined The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida as an Assistant Professor in 2005 and moved to the University of Miami as an Associate Professor in 2011. Dr. Ayad’s research has focused on elucidating novel cell cycle pathways. His graduate studies identified a novel means through which endocytosis is inhibited during mitosis, while his postdoctoral studies identified two novel cell cycle regulators, Tome-1 and sororin. His work in his own laboratory has utilized high-throughput screens to identify regulators of cell cycle transitions, cancer, and neurite outgrowth. These regulators include Wee1, Casein Kinase 1, the Anaphase Promoting Complex (APC/C), and BRD4. His laboratory focuses on identifying therapeutic combinations for medulloblastoma and glioblastoma.

May 7th, 2021

Ligia Pinto, Ph.D.

FNLCR, NIH

“Immunogenicity of HPV vaccines: What have we learned and where are we going?”

Sponsors: Mary Beth Fargo, Dr. Robert Beckman

dr Ligia Pinto is the Director of the Vaccine, Immunity and Cancer Directorate at the Frederick National Laboratory, which includes the Serology Laboratory and the Cancer Immunoprevention Laboratory. dr Pinto received her PhD from the University of Lisbon in Portugal in 1995, after several years of research on cellular immunology of HIV infection at the Experimental Immunology Branch, NIH. She continued her postdoctoral studies at NIH where she focused on investigating immunological alterations induced by HIV, HIV vaccine candidates and host protective immune responses controlling HIV replication and associated pathogenesis. In 2001, she joined the Frederick National Laboratory to establish the HPV Immunology Laboratory. The work from her Laboratory has played a critical role in the understanding of the systemic and mucosal immune responses induced by the licensed HPV vaccines in clinical trials and promoted the development of an International HPV Serology Standardization Initiative. The work done by her Lab gave rise to the establishment of two additional FNL-based laboratories: The HPV Serology Laboratory and the Cancer Immunoprevention Laboratory. The HPV Serology Laboratory was established on 2017, to lead an international standardization initiative on HPV serology, sponsored by NCI and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Cancer Immunoprevention Laboratory evaluates and develops new immunoprevention strategies in animal models and novel assays for biomarker research. In March 2020, Dr. Pinto’s Serology Lab started working in the area of SARS-CoV-2 serology, production of standards, and evaluation of commercial serology tests in collaboration with several government agencies including FDA. In addition, she is the FNL Lead for a newly formed network funded by NCI, the Serological Sciences Network. Taken together, Dr. Pinto and her team have had a long history of research excellence at the Frederick National Laboratory and the NIH in the area of immunology of infectious diseases and vaccines for the last 30 years, with over 130 peer-reviewed publications and distinguished awards.

April 30th, 2021

Arlene Sharpe, M.D., Ph.D.

Harvard

“Multifaceted Functions of the PD-1 Pathway”

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

Arlene Sharpe, MD, PhD is the George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology and Chair of the Department of Immunology at Harvard Medical School. She is a member of the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a Member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Leader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, and Co-Director of the Evergrande Center for Immunologic Diseases at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is also the Co-Leader of MassCPR (Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness) established in March 2020 by Harvard Medical School to respond to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and prepare for emerging pathogens of the future.

dr Sharpe earned her MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School and completed her residency in Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. dr Sharpe is a leader in the field of T cell costimulation. Her laboratory has discovered and elucidated the functions of T cell costimulatory pathways, including the immunoinhibitory functions of the CTLA-4 and PD-1 pathways, which have become exceptionally promising targets for cancer immunotherapy. Her laboratory currently focuses on the roles of T cell costimulatory pathways in regulating T cell tolerance, effective antimicrobial and antitumor immunity, and translating fundamental understanding of T cell costimulation into new therapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

dr Sharpe has published over 300 papers and was listed by Thomas Reuters as one of the most Highly Cited Researchers (top 1%) in 2014-2018 and a 2016 Citation Laureate. She received the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Tumor immunology in 2014, the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize in 2017 for her contributions to the discovery of PD-1 pathway, and the SITC Smalley Award in 2020. Dr. Sharpe is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine. She is also a Fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research and the National Academy of Inventors.

April 23rd, 2021

Douglas Kojetin, Ph.D.

Scripps Research, FL

“Nuclear Receptor Function Made Crystal Clear with NMR Spectroscopy”

Sponsor: Dr. Rebecca Riggins

Doug Kojetin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at Scripps Research in Jupiter, Florida. In 2000, Doug obtained a B.S. in Chemistry from Purdue University. In 2005, Doug earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from North Carolina State University in Prof. John Cavanagh’s lab where he initiated his training in biomolecular NMR spectroscopy, structural biology, and biophysics. Doug completed two postdoctoral research positions—obtaining additional training in biomolecular NMR spectroscopy at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine with Prof. Mark Rance, and training in molecular and cellular pharmacological methods applied towards nuclear receptors at Scripps Research in Jupiter, Florida with Prof. Thomas Burris. In 2010, Doug began his independent research lab at Scripps Research as an Assistant Professor, and in 2014 he was promoted to Associate Professor. The goal of Doug’s research is to understand how the function of nuclear receptor transcription factors is regulated on the structural and molecular level, including the influence of small molecule ligands—natural/endogenous ligands, synthetic ligands, and FDA-approved drugs that are used clinically. His lab integrates biomolecular NMR spectroscopy as a main structural biology technique with a variety of structural, computational, biophysical, and functional approaches to connect molecular and structural findings on nuclear receptors to cellular functions.

April 16th, 2021

Joan Massagué, Ph.D.

Sloan Kettering

“Metastasis Initiating Cells and Ecosystems”

Sponsor: Dr. Marc Lippman

Joan Massagué is Director of the Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI) since 2014. His PhD degree in Biochemistry is from the University of Barcelona. He joined the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1980. He was appointed Chair of the Cell Biology Program at SKI in 1989 and of the Cancer Biology Program in 2003. He was HHMI Investigator (1980-2013) and currently serves as HHMI Scientific Advisor. dr Massagué works on cell phenotype regulation and cancer metastasis. He identified the TGF-β receptors and signal transduction pathway, and defined how this pathway regulates development and regeneration, and how its malfunctions cause fibrosis and cancer. Building on this work, Massagué dissected the mechanistic basis for metastasis, opening avenues for new treatments of cancer. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and European Molecular Biology Organization.

March 26th, 2021

Thomas Edwards, Ph.D. and Jana Ognjenović, Ph.D.

FNLCR

“National Cryo-EM Program: An Overview”

Sponsors: Mary Beth Fargo and Dr. Robert Beckman

Thomas Edwards earned a BS in chemistry and BA in history at Michigan State University. At Purdue University he earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Virology studying under Dr. Richard Kuhn where he explored problems in alphavirus and flavivirus assembly, in particular, focusing on structural studies of intra-cellular virus-induced membrane structures. It was during these studies where learned techniques in cryo-electron microscopy and tomography. Thomas came to the National Cryo-EM Facility as an electron microscopist in 2017 and has been recently promoted to Senior Microscopist in 2021.

dr Jana Ognjenović received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Belgrade, Serbia. She then completed postdoctoral training in the lab of Miljan Simonović at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she studied the structure and function of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases using X-ray crystallography. Subsequently, Dr. Ognjenović joined the group of Sriram Subramaniam at the National Cancer Institute, where she used cryo-electron microscopy for high-resolution structure determination of various protein complexes.

dr Ognjenović is currently head of the Advance Cryo-EM Technology group at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research. Her team explores emerging platforms and develops methodologies for both single-particle analysis and cryo-electron tomography, with an emphasis on pursuits that have the potential to make cryo-EM a more widely accessible technique. Her group’s research interests include signal transduction and the regulation of gene expression, with the goal of using high-resolution cryo-EM structures to gain mechanistic insights and to inform drug design efforts against intractable targets.

March 19th, 2021

Sreejith Nair, Ph.D.

UCSD

“Gene control by non-coding genomic elements in development and diseases states”

Sponsor: Dr. Jeffrey Toretsky

Sreejith Nair is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego. His research focuses on the role of non-coding genome in gene regulation and genome organization. He employs multidisciplinary approaches to study the role of non-coding genome and nuclear organization in disease, development and homeostasis. He will join LCCC as tenure line assistant professor in the Department of Oncology and BMCB in the Summer of 2021.

March 12th, 2021

Olivier Delattre, M.D.

Institut Curie, Paris

“Interplay of genetic and non-genetic mechanisms of tumor progression in Ewing sarcoma”

Sponsor: Dr. Aykut Uren

Olivier Delattre, MD, PhD was trained in pediatric oncology and in genetics. His research area mainly investigates the genetic and biology of pediatric cancers. In particular, his laboratory has identified the genetic alterations of a variety of childhood cancers including the EWS-FLI1 rearrangement in Ewing sarcoma, the SMARCB1 inactivation in rhabdoid tumors, the ALK activation mutation in neuroblastoma and the BCOR-CCNB1 fusion in Ewing-like sarcoma. He has also contributed identifying major tumor predisposing mutations or genetic susceptibility factors in neurofibromatosis type II, rhabdoid syndrome predisposition, neuroblastoma and Ewing sarcoma. His lab has also strong interest in deciphering the cellular origin of pediatric cancers and particularly Ewing sarcoma, neuroblastoma and rhabdoid tumors. Globally, the interests of his lab is to further understand the interplay between the genetic abnormalities and the specific background of the cell-of-origin. Olivier Delattre is a member of EMBO since 2011 and of Academia Europea since 2012. He received numerous awards including the Eurocancer award in 2007, Charles Oberlin award in 2009, the Leopold Griffuel award in 2016.

Olivier Delattre is Director of the Cancer Biology and Genetics department Inserm U830 and Director of the SIREDO center, a pediatric center of international stature that was created in 2017 at Institut Curie. SIREDO (French for Care, Innovation and research for children, adolescents and young adults with cancer) gathers researchers and physicians in the oncopaediatrics, adolescent and young adult fields to bring new medications to patients as quickly as possible.

March 5th, 2021

William Muller, Ph.D.

McGill

“Oncogene-mediated Signal transduction in transgenic mouse models of human breast cancer”

Sponsor: Dr. Rebecca Riggins

dr Muller’s laboratory focuses on the area of mouse models of breast cancer progression. The progression of the primary mammary epithelial cell to malignant phenotype involves multiple genetic events including the activation of dominant activating oncogenes and inactivation of specific tumour suppressor genes. dr Muller’s laboratory focuses on the role of a class of receptor tyrosine kinases known as the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) family in the induction of breast cancer. Elevated expression of the various EGFR family members has been observed in a large proportion of sporadic breast cancers and their derived cell lines. For example, amplification and over-expression of erbB-2/neu proto-oncogene is observed in 20-30% human breast cancer and is inversely correlated with the survival of the patient.

The major focus of Dr. Muller’s team is to determine the relative contribution of the various EGFR family members and their coupled signaling pathways in ErbB-2 induced mammary tumour progression. Given the fact that germline inactivation of these signaling pathways results in either embryonic or perinatal lethality, they have used use the Cre/Lox recombination system to specifically inactivate each of these signaling molecules members in the mammary epithelium of mice expressing activated erbB-2.

The results of these biochemical and genetic analyses will provide important insight in molecular basis for erbB-2 induced tumorigenesis and metastasis.

February 26th, 2021

Rick Kittles, Ph.D.

City of Hope

“Leveraging Genetic Ancestry to Study Health Disparities”

Sponsor: Dr. Lucile Adams-Campbell

Rick Kittles, Ph.D., is Professor and founding director of the Division of Health Equities within the Department of Population Sciences at the City of Hope (COH). He is also Associate Director of Health Equities of COH Comprehensive Cancer Center. dr Kittles is well known for his research of prostate cancer and health disparities among African Americans. dr Kittles’ research has focused on understanding the complex issues surrounding race, genetic ancestry, and health disparities. dr Kittles received a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from George Washington University in 1998. His first faculty appointment was at Howard University where he helped establish the National Human Genome Center at Howard University.

Over the last twenty years he has been at the forefront of the development of genetic markers for ancestry and how genetic ancestry can be used in genetic studies on disease risk and outcomes. His work has shown the impact of genetic variation across populations in pharmacogenomics, biomarker discovery, and disease gene mapping. dr Kittles has NIH-funded projects to study genetic and environmental modifiers of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in order to improve our understanding of the role serum Vitamin D plays in health disparities. He is leading a multi-site collaboration studying modifiers of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels and their role on prostate cancer susceptibility.

In 2010 Dr. Kittles was named in Ebony magazine’s “The Ebony Power 100.” Ebony selected the nation’s top 100 African-American “power players” in sports, academia, religion, business, environment, science & tech, entertainment, arts and letters, fashion, politics, media, activism and health. In March of 2012 Dr. Kittles presented the Keynote Address to the United Nations General Assembly, “International Day of Remembrance of Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.” Recently Dr. Kittles was named by The Huffington Post as one of “50 Iconic Black Trailblazers Who Represent Every State In America.”

dr Kittles has published over 200 research articles on prostate cancer genetics, Race and Genetics, and health disparities.

February 19th, 2021

Elena Martinez, Ph.D.

UCSD

“Partnership with Community Health Centers to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening”

Sponsor: Dr. Kenneth Tercyak

dr Martinez is a cancer epidemiologist with expertise in molecular epidemiology as well as cancer disparities research. She is currently Professor in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health & Human Longevity Science and Associate Director of Population Sciences, Disparities and Community Engagement at UC San Diego’s Moores Cancer Center. She is Lead Principal Investigator (PI) of the NIH-funded SDSU/UCSD Cancer Center Comprehensive Partnership, whose mission is to address cancer disparities in Hispanic/Latino populations through research, research education, and community outreach. She is lead PI of the Accelerating Colorectal Cancer Screening and Follow-up through Implementation Science Cancer Moonshot grant, which addresses the extremely low colorectal cancer screening and follow-up rates in community health centers in San Diego County. She is MPI of the California Teachers Study, a NCI-funded cohort study. Nationally, she has established strong leadership and commitment to the area of cancer health disparities, particularly in relation to Hispanic/Latino populations in the U.S. She has served on NCI’s Board of Scientific Counselors and Board of Scientific Advisors. Finally, she was one of only 28 members nationally who served on the prestigious Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel.

February 12th, 2021

Douglas Hanahan, Ph.D.

EPFL

“Epigenetic signaling pathways controlling invasion and metastasis”

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

Douglas Hanahan is Director of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), and Co-Director of the new multi-institutional Swiss Cancer Center Leman. Hanahan trained at MIT and Harvard University. He worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for a decade and then spent 21 years as a Professor at the University of California San Francisco before moving to EPFL in 2009. Hanahan is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a member of the US National Academies of Medicine and of Science, and of the European Molecular Biology Organization. He received an honorary degree from the University of Dundee (2011). In 2014, he was elected to the Academy of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and honored with the AACR’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, Hanahan was appointed as a Distinguished Scholar of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (Zurich/New York).

Hanahan’s research is focused on elucidating mechanisms of tumor development and progression in genetically engineered mouse models of human cancer, a field Hanahan has helped pioneer, with a particular focus on functional contributions of the disparate cell types of the tumor microenvironment, and on applying knowledge of mechanisms to guide combinatorial therapeutic strategies with promise to improve the treatment of human cancers.

February 5th, 2021

Joe Gray, Ph.D.

OHSU

“Moving from Precision to Personalized Metastatic Breast Cancer Treatments – promises and problems”

Sponsor: Dr. Marc Lippman

dr Joe W. Gray, a physicist and an engineer by training, is the Gordon Moore Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Associate Director for Biophysical Oncology, Knight Cancer Institute at OHSU. His research program applies experimental and mathematical tools to elucidate mechanisms by which genomic, transcriptional and proteomic abnormalities occur including how these abnormalities alter the multiscale architecture of cancers and their microenvironmental pathophysiology and how these changes contribute to cancer progression and response to therapy. Past contributions include development of cytometric techniques for cell and genome analysis including high speed chromosome sorting, BrdUrd/DNA analysis of cell proliferation, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and End Sequence Profiling (ESP). More recently, Dr. Gray has elucidated mechanisms of cancer progression and developed systems biology approaches for identification of molecular markers that predict and determine response to therapeutic treatment. Currently, he is co-leading a translational research effort to elucidate how genomic and epigenomic events influence the multiscale structures that control progression and therapeutic response in breast cancer. dr Gray has published over 500 scientific papers and holds more than 80 US Patents. Major awards include E.O. Lawrence Award, U.S. Department of Energy, 1986; Curt Stern Award, American Society for Human Genetics, 2001; Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction: Basic Science, 2007; Team Science Award, American Association for Cancer Research, 2008 and 2020; McGuire Award, San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, 2011; Simon M. Shubitz Award for work in genome science, University of Chicago, 2012; Alfred G. Knudson Award Lecture in Cancer Genetics, NCI, 2014; and election as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, 2009, the National Academy of Medicine, 2011, and the American Association of Cancer Research Academy Class of 2016.

January 29th, 2021

Yarden Samuels, Ph.D.

The Weizmann Institute

“Deciphering the immune-genomic landscape in melanoma”

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

Prof. Yardena Samuels received her BSc from Cambridge University, UK in 1993, and earned an MSc in immunology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in 1997. She completed a PhD at Imperial College, London in 2002. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Prof Vogelstein’s laboratory at Johns Hopkins University from 2003 to 2006. She served as an assistant professor at NIH before joining the Weizmann Institute in 2012. Today she is the director of the EKARD Institute for Cancer Diagnosis Research and is the incumbent of the Knell Family Professorial Chair. Prof. Samuels is the recipient of the Pezoller Foundation – EACR Cancer Researcher Award, the Youdim Family Prize for Excellence in Cancer Research and has recently been nominated an EMBO member.

Prof Samuels’ focus involves the identification of gene mutations that play a role in the progression of cutaneous melanoma. Her aim is to delineate ideal protein target combinations in melanoma to achieve lasting disease control. Her lab was part of the TCGA workgroup who published the Genomic Classification of Cutaneous Melanoma. Her lab has developed novel methods to identify melanoma neo-antigens using genetic and proteomic methods. She has further been characterizing the immune response to these neo-antigens and developed relevant mouse models to investigate the role tumor heterogeneity plays in the tumor immune response.

December 11th, 2020

Robert Winn, M.D.

VCU

“Making Impact: Cancer Centers in the 21st Century”

Sponsor: Dr. Louis Weiner

Robert Winn, M.D., was appointed director of VCU Massey Cancer Center on December 2, 2019. In this position, he oversees a cancer center designated by the National Cancer Institute that provides outstanding cancer care, conducts groundbreaking research to discover new treatments for cancer and offers high-quality education, training and community outreach programs.

His current basic science research, which has been supported by multiple National Institutes of Health awards, focuses on the cellular pathways that drive the development and progression of lung cancer and the role of cell division arrest in lung cancer.

Winn is committed to community-engaged research centered on eliminating health disparities. He is a principal investigator on several community-based projects funded by the NIH and National Cancer Institute, including the All of Us Research Program, a NIH precision medicine initiative. He has received national and international acclaim for his efforts to empower underserved patient populations, improve health care delivery and ensure equal access to cancer care.

Winn’s previous faculty appointments include serving as director of the University of Illinois Cancer Center from 2015 to 2019 and as associate vice chancellor of health affairs for community-based practice at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Science System from 2013 to 2019.

December 4th, 2020

Worta McCaskill-Stevens, M.D.

NCI

“Moving Toward Precision Oncology: A Partnership Between Community and Academic Oncology”

Sponsor: Dr. Sandra Swain

dr Worta McCaskill-Stevens is a medical oncologist and Chief of the Community Oncology and Prevention Trials Research Group, which houses the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP), a community-based clinical trials network launched in 2014. As NCORP Director, she oversees the program supporting community hospitals, physicians and others to participate in NCI-approved cancer treatment, prevention, screening, and control clinical trials, as well as cancer care delivery studies. After arriving at the NCI in 1998, she became the program director for the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR), and assumed responsibilities for breast cancer prevention with the CCOP. She chaired the 2009 NIH State-of-the Science Conference on ductal carcinoma in situ; is a member of the Early Breast Cancer Clinical Trialist Group (Oxford, UK); and is a member of NCI’s Breast Cancer Steering Committee.

After attending Washington University and the American College of Switzerland, she completed medical school and an internal medicine residency at Georgetown University followed by a medical oncology fellowship at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN). Prior to her current position, she was the Co-Director of the Breast Care and Research Center at the Indiana University Cancer Center. In 2016, she was the recipient of the American Association for Cancer Research Jane Cooke Wright Memorial Lectureship, which recognizes an outstanding scientist who has made meritorious contributions to the field of cancer research and who has, through leadership or by example, furthered the advancement of minority investigators in cancer research. Her other honors and awards include: the Kaiser Family Fund Award for Excellence in Academic Achievement and Leadership in Medicine; Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society; the NIH Director’s Award for Clinical Trials; the NCI Merit Award for breast cancer prevention; and listed on Ebony magazine’s 2013 Power 100 – Most Influential African Americans in Science and Health. Prior to medical school, Dr. McCaskill-Stevens was a medical editor for Marcel Dekker and the Alan Guttamcher Institute.

November 13th, 2020

Wayne Marasco, M.D., Ph.D.

Harvard

“Development of Dual-Targeted, Fine-Tuned, Immune-Restoring CAR T Cell Therapy to Cure Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma”

Sponsor: Dr. Louis Weiner

Dr Marasco’s laboratory conducts basic science and translational research in the areas of human antibody engineering and cancer immunotherapies. They have pioneered numerous technological developments in the field of human antibody engineering and cancer immunotherapies. Based on their unique technical expertise, numerous patented discoveries, track record of establishing productive academic collaborations, they formally launched the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) Center for Therapeutic Antibody Engineering (CTAE) in 2004 (http://research4.dfci.harvard.edu/nfcr-ctae/) where Dr. Marasco served as the founding Scientific Director. He is also the founding director of the humanized mouse program (www.humice.org) that is engaged in developing humanized mice capable of developing strong adaptive immune responses, which are now being used to accelerate the development of anti-cancer therapeutic antibodies and other cellular therapies including chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. Relevant to this proposal, they have worked in the kidney cancer immunotherapy development arena for more than 10 years and published several manuscripts. Based on their discovery of human antibodies against the clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) associated tumor antigens carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX) and CD70; as well as antibodies against immune checkpoint modulators such as PD1/PDL1, they have successfully established the 1st generation lead anti-CD70/anti-CAIX Dual-targeted Fine-tuned Immune-Restoring CAR T (DFIR-CART) cells that secrete antibody drugs called checkpoint blockade inhibitors (CBIs). This combination approach is designed to change the tumor environment and enhance the ability of CAR-T treatment to kill cancer cells, avoid immune escape and reduce on-target, off-tumor toxicity. They have proven that restoring the tumor environment towards effective T cell anti-tumor immunity leads to significant renal cell carcinoma cell death in complex tumor models.

November 6th, 2020

Howard Xue, M.D., Ph.D.

CDI-Hackensack

“Tcf/Lef nucleated network in immune regulation and leukemia”

Sponsors: Dr. Louis Weiner and Dr. Benjamin Tycko

dr Xue has been leading his independent laboratory at the University of Iowa since 2006. The Xue lab’s major interest is to elucidate transcriptional and epigenetic regulation in T lymphocytes, hematopoietic and leukemic stem cells. His current focus is on the Tcf/Lef family transcription factors and their associated Wnt-beta-catenin pathway and Groucho/Tle cofactors.

October 30th, 2020

Steffi Oesterreich, Ph.D.

University of Pittsburgh

“Histological Subtypes of Breast Cancer – Why Do They Matter?”

Sponsor: Dr. Rebecca Riggins

dr Oesterreich joined University of Pittsburgh in August 2010 as Professor with Tenure in the Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, and as Director of Education in the Women’s Cancer Research Center (WCRC), a collaboration between the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and Magee-Womens Research Institute. She currently serves as Co-Director of the WCRC, and Co-Leader of the Cancer Biology Program of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. Her laboratory focuses on invasive lobular breast cancer, and on resistance to hormonal therapies in patients with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer and breast cancer metastases. dr Oesterreich enjoys working in multi-disciplinary teams and is committed to mentoring the next generation of breast cancer researchers. She is also grateful to and enjoys working with patients advocates, such as the Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance, for which she chairs the Scientific Advisory Board.

She has authored over 150 scientific articles in the area of breast cancer, and her research has continuously been funded by NCI, CDMRP, Susan G Komen, BCRF and other breast cancer foundations for many years. dr Oesterreich is a Susan G Komen Scholar, thereby belonging to a selective group of leading national and international breast cancer experts. She has chaired the Tumor Cell Biology Study Section at the NIH, and the 2019 Gordon Research Conference on Hormones and Cancer. She serves as Deputy Editor for Molecular Cancer Research. dr Oesterreich and her husband Dr. Adrian Lee have 2 daughters (Paula and Nicola), and enjoy the outdoors in and around in Pittsburgh.

October 23rd, 2020

Kieron Dunleavy, M.D.

George Washington University

“Implementing Molecular Advances to Direct Therapy in Aggressive B-Cell Lymphoma”

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

dr Dunleavy is currently a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Lymphoma Program at George Washington University (GWU) Cancer Center and the Medical Faculty Associates, GWU. He is a graduate of University College Dublin Medical School and completed a Fellowship in Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. Subsequently, he worked as an attending physician/investigator with the NCI Lymphoid Malignancies Branch where he was the Clinical Director prior to his move to GW. His work is focused on the biology and treatment of lymphoid diseases. He has worked on Phase I, II and III clinical trials as a Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on several single and multi-center studies – among his research roles, he is currently a co-PI on an NHLBI study evaluating the efficacy of a novel T-cell specific cellular therapy in patients with relapsed and refractory lymphoma. He serves on the editorial board of several hematological malignancy journals and on the scientific advisory board of the Lymphoma Research Foundation.

October 16th, 2020

Clifford Brangwynne, Ph.D.

Princeton University

“Liquid Phase Condensation in Cell Physiology and Disease”

Sponsor:

Clifford Brangwynne received a B.S. (2001) in Materials Science & Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a Ph.D. (2007) in Applied Physics from Harvard University. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems from 2007 to 2010, prior to joining the faculty of Princeton University in 2011, where he is currently a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is the recipient of numerous awards including a Macarthur Fellowship (2018), Blavatnik Award (2020), and Wiley Prize (2020).

October 9th, 2020

Erin Kobetz, Ph.D.

University of Miami

“From Bench to Trench: Moving the Dial on Cancer Disparity in Southern Florida.”

Sponsor: Dr. Marc Lippman

dr Erin Kobetz is a Tenured Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Public Health Sciences, and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Miami (UM) Miller School of Medicine. Additionally, she is Associate Director of Population Science and Cancer Disparities at UM’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center (SCCC), as well as, the Chief of Population Health and Cancer Disparities for UHealth Oncology Service line. dr Kobetz also serves as Program Director for the Community Engagement and Multidisciplinary Team Science Components of UM’s Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSA) and is the University’s co-Vice Provost for Research (VPR).

She earned a Master’s in Public Health from Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University (1999), and joined the University of Miami in September of 2004, after completing her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gillings School of Public Health. Soon after, Dr. Kobetz established Patnè en Aksyon (Partners in Action), Sylvester’s first ever campus community partnership in Little Haiti, the largest enclave of Haitian settlement, and remains committed to integrating diverse stakeholders into the translational research continuum.

dr Kobetz currently works as the Principal Investigator of multiple grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparity (NIHMD,) to support collaborative science with numerous South Florida communities. Collectively, they have garnered over 25 million dollars in extramural funding and serve as the University’s model for stakeholder engagement. dr Erin Kobetz has also partnered with South Florida Firefighters – similarly characterized by excess cancer risk – and leads the Firefighter Cancer Initiative (FCI), a University-wide interdisciplinary strategy to address disparity from “bench” to “bedside” to “community.” Such efforts have been locally and nationally recognized and serve as an important approach to develop new community-based models for cancer prevention and achieve sustainable health and social change in underserved communities.

September 25th, 2020

Ashani Weeraratna, Ph.D.

Johns Hopkins

“Age Against The Machine: How Aging Drives Tumor Progression.”

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Atkins

Dr Weeraratna is currently the E.V. McCollum Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, and Co-Program Leader of the Cancer Invasion and Metastasis Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, she was the Ira Brind Professor and Co-Program Leader, Immunology, Microenvironment & Metastasis Program Member at the Wistar Institute. Born in Sri Lanka and raised in Southern Africa, Weeraratna first came to the United States in 1988 to study biology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She earned a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Oncology at the Department of Pharmacology of George Washington University Medical Center. From 1998 to 2000, she was a post-doctoral fellow at The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, before joining the National Human Genome Research Institute as a staff scientist. In 2003, she moved to the National Institute on Aging, where she started her own research program, before joining the Wistar Institute from 2011-2019. dr Weeraratna is an expert in melanoma metastasis, Wnt signaling, and aging, and her research focuses heavily on the effects of the tumor microenvironment on metastasis and therapy resistance. She is one of the first to study how the aging microenvironment guides metastasis and therapy resistance in melanoma. Her studies encompass biopohysical changes that affect the ability of both tumor and immune cells to migrate, that affect vasculature integrity thus dictating routes of metastasis, and also secreted changes that drive metastatic signaling and response to therapy. The Weeraratna laboratory has also undertaken a global analysis of how the aged microenvironment promotes metastasis, using a unique resource of normal skin fibroblasts from healthy donors of differing ages, proteomics analysis, and animal models. The clinical implications of these data may also result in a change in clinical practice, as they are finding age-related differences in responses to both targeted and immunotherapy. dr Weeraratna is using these proteomics data to guide further studies on how the aging microenvironment affects tumor dormancy and cellular metabolism.

Through speaking engagements and social media, Dr. Weeraratna diligently promotes skin safety, from urging proper sunscreen use to regular mole checks, as well as the dangers of indoor tanning. She is also a fierce champion of and a mentor for junior faculty, women in science and girls pursuing a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education.

September 18th, 2020

Gary Kupfer, M.D.

Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center

“Genomic Instability: Rare Diseases and Common Lessons.”

Sponsor: Dr. Jeffrey Toretsky

Gary Kupfer is a physician scientist, practicing as a pediatric hematologist-oncologist and operating his laboratory for the past 22 years. His travels have brought in and out of the Metro DC area, having attended medical school at Johns Hopkins University, started as a junior faculty at the University of Virginia, and now joining the faculty of Georgetown this summer, during a pandemic no less, moving from Yale where he created a program in pediatric hematology-oncology the past 13 years. He brings his laboratory in which he focuses on the biology of DNA repair and is leading the hemophilia treatment center along with joining the leadership of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

September 11th, 2020

John Carethers, M.D.

University of Michigan

“The Contribution of DNA Mismatch Repair Defects in Colorectal Cancer”

Sponsor: Dr. Lucile Adams-Campbell

dr John M. Carethers is currently the John G. Searle Professor and Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. He received his BS degree in Biological Sciences with a minor in Chemistry from Wayne State University, and his MD with high distinction from the same institution. dr Carethers completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a fellowship in gastroenterology at the University of Michigan. He was then recruited to the University of California, San Diego, where he grew his laboratory-based research in the area of DNA mismatch repair and colorectal cancer pathogenesis, saw general medicine and gastroenterology patients. He also served as the main physician for hereditary colon cancer referrals in Southern California. His leadership roles included the gastroenterology fellowship director, the gastroenterology Section Chief for the San Diego VA Hospital, then Division Chief for University of California, San Diego, before being recruited to Michigan.

dr Carethers was the founding Director of the NIH-funded UCSD Gastroenterology Center grant, and was the Director of the gastroenterology T32 training grant. His laboratory research continues to be funded by the NIH. dr Carethers also has interest in colorectal cancer disparities as it relates to genetics and outcomes. He is the former PI of the SDSU/UCSD Cancer Center Comprehensive Partnership U54 grant, which addresses cancer disparities, and was selected as the 14th Jane Cooke Wright Lecturer for the American Association for Cancer Research. He has published over 200 manuscripts and book chapters. He is a former Senior Associate Editor for Gastroenterology, the official journal for the American Gastroenterological Association. He completed a 2-year appointment on the National Commission for Digestive Diseases, a U.S. Congressional Commission, after his appointment by Elias Zerhouni, MD, then Director of the National Institutes of Health. He was elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and elected a member of the American Association of Physicians (AAP), and served as President of AAP for 2018-2019. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2012 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016. He received the Robert H. Williams, MD Distinguished Chair of Medicine Award from the Association of Professors of Medicine in 2019. He is currently vice-president of the American Gastroenterological Association, and will be president in 2022.

February 28th, 2020

Nagi Kumar, Ph.D.

Lee Moffitt Cancer Center

“Cancer Interception: A Broad Spectrum Approach To Evaluate Agents for Clinical Chemoprevention”

Sponsor: Dr. Lucile Adams-Campbell

dr Nagi B. Kumar is Professor of Department of Epidemiology H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute at the University of South Florida College of Medicine. She has completed her MA ,PhD from University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. dr Nagi B. Kumar research interests include Cancer Clinical Trials, preclinical and early phase I-II clinical trials with purified isoflavones, curcuminoid complex, green tea catechins, n-3 fatty acids, tannic acid and lycopene.

dr Kumar focuses her research on examining the role of botanicals and biologics in the prevention, treatment and survival from cancer. Using a systematic, science-based approach, and working with a multidisciplinary team, Dr. Kumar has initiated and completed several preclinical and early phase I-II clinical trials with purified isoflavones, curcuminoid complex, green tea catechins, n-3 fatty acids, tannic acid and lycopene, laying the foundation to develop a program to accelerate agent development and validation at Moffitt Cancer Center.

February 21st 2020:

Patricia Ganz, M.D.

UCLA

“Cancer and Aging: Implications for Cancer Survivors”

Sponsors: Dr. Claudine Isaacs, Dr Robert Warren

Patricia A. Ganz, M.D., a medical oncologist, has been a member of the faculty of the UCLA School of Medicine since 1978 and the UCLA School of Public Health since 1992. Since 1993 she has been the Associate Director for Population Science at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 1999 she was awarded an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professorship for “Enhancing Patient Outcomes across the Cancer Control Continuum.” dr Ganz was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2007, now National Academy of Medicine (NAM). She served on the National Cancer Institute Board of Scientific Advisors from 2002-2007 and on the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Board of Directors from 2003-2006. She received the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor in 2010. Dr. Ganz has served on three NAM consensus committees: From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor, 2005; Cancer Care for the Whole Patient, 2008; and Delivering High-quality Cancer Care, 2013, which she chaired. dr Ganz is a pioneer in the assessment of quality of life in cancer patients, and has focused much of her clinical and research efforts in the areas of breast cancer and its prevention. At the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, she leads Cancer Control and Survivorship Program. Her major areas of research include cancer survivorship and the late effects of cancer treatment, measurement of patient reported outcomes in clinical treatment trials, and quality of care for cancer patients. In July 2017, Dr. Ganz became Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI).

February 14th, 2020

Dwight Nissley, Ph.D.

Frederick National Lab (FNLCR)

“Drugging the Undruggable: The RAS Initiative and the Frederick National Library”

Sponsor: Dr. Louis Weiner

dr Nissley is the Director of the Cancer Research Technology Program (CRTP) Directorate at Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR). In this role, he is responsible for the efforts of 200 scientists working in a broad range of technology, and basic/translational research including; genomics, proteomics, optical microscopy, SEM and TEM microscopy, cryo-EM, nanotechnology, oncology research and drug discovery as well as the newly established National cryo-EM Facility (https://www.cancer.gov/research/resources/cryoem) . He is also responsible for guiding the NCI RAS Initiative (https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras ), an NCI-funded program that aims to find therapeutic interventions against oncogenic Ras which is a driver in up to a third of all cancers. In addition he is part of the NCI-DOE Joint Design od Advanced Computing Solutions for Cancer (JDACS4C) collaboration serving as NCI-lead on the Molecular Level Pilot for RAS Structure and Dynamics in Cellular Membranes and a member of the Joint Research Committee for the Accelerating Therapeutics for Opportunities in Medicine (ATOM) consortium which is a public-private partnership with the mission of transforming drug discovery by accelerating the development of more effective therapies for patients.

February 7th, 2020:

Katherine Aird, Ph.D.

Penn State

“The Metabolic-Epigenetic Axis in Ovarian Cancer”

Sponsor: Dr Rebecca Riggins

dr Aird received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Johns Hopkins University and her PhD from Duke University. She did her postdoctoral training at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and was the recipient of an NCI K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award. She joined the Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology at Penn State College of Medicine as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in late 2016. The main focus of Dr. Aird’s lab is to investigate the metabolic control of tumor initiation with the ultimate goal of identifying novel therapeutic targets.

January 24th, 2020:

Sandra Demaria, M.D.

Cornell

“In situ vaccination with focal tumor radiotherapy: from mice to patients and back”

Sponsors: Dr Michael Atkins

Sandra Demaria, M.D., a native of Turin, Italy, obtained her M.D. from the University of Turin, and then moved to New York City for her post-doctoral training in immunology as a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund awardee, followed by a residency in anatomic pathology at NYU School of Medicine (NYU SoM). She remained on the faculty at NYU SoM until 2015, raising to the rank of Professor. She is currently Professor of Radiation Oncology and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. dr Demaria is internationally known for her studies demonstrating the synergy of radiotherapy with immunotherapy in pre-clinical cancer models. She was the first to show that radiotherapy can convert tumors unresponsive to immune checkpoint inhibitors into responsive ones, a finding being translated in several clinical trials at multiple institutions. Her lab has a central interest in addressing the molecular mechanisms that regulate ionizing radiation’s ability to generate an in situ tumor vaccine in both preclinical models as well as cancer patients. As a breast cancer pathologist Dr. Demaria also studies the immunological microenvironment of breast cancer in patients, and therapeutic strategies to modulate the immune infiltrate in preclinical models and in patients. She has authored more than 100 articles and has received awards from the American Cancer Society, the Department of Defense CDMRP, the US National Cancer Institute, and several private Foundations.

January 10th, 2020:

Jason Locasale, Ph.D.

Duke

“Glucose and amino acid metabolism in cancer.”

Sponsors: Dr Stephen Byers

Jason W. Locasale, Ph.D. is a tenured associate professor at Duke University in the School of Medicine. He graduated from Rutgers University, Summa Cum Laude with degrees in Chemistry and Physics. He received his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then conducted his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School under the mentorship of Lewis Cantley as an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow and later as an Instructor on the faculty at Harvard in the Department of Medicine. dr Locasale has pioneered the use of metabolomics approaches to study cancer biology and metabolism. He has made seminal contributions to our understanding of metabolism and nutrition including the role of serine synthesis in cancers, defining the quantitative, mechanistic principles of the Warburg Effect and altered glucose metabolism in cancer, and the role of metabolism in mediating chromatin status and epigenetics. His research combines quantitative approaches in metabolomics and mathematical modeling with biochemistry, cell biology and genetics. dr Locasale is a recipient of the NIH Pathway to Independence Award, the Benjamin Trump Award for Excellence in Cancer Research, and the American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award. As an internationally recognized thought leader in metabolism, Dr. Locasale currently serves on the editorial board of PLoS Biology and has served numerous advisory roles for industry, philanthropic organization, and government including the National Institutes of Health office of the Director, and the National Cancer Institute. His laboratory is funded primarily by NIH. He has authored over 150 publications and numerous textbooks chapters and patents.

December 6th 2019:

Clifford Hudis, M.D.

AACR

“Your Professional Society in Times of Change”

Sponsors: Dr. Louis Weiner, Dr. Sandra Swain

dr Hudis is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He also serves as the CEO of its Conquer Cancer Foundation and the Chairman of the Board of Governors of ASCO’s CancerLinQ. dr Hudis previously served in a variety of roles at ASCO, including as President during the Society’s 50th anniversary year (2013-14). Before transitioning full-time to ASCO, he was the Chief of the Breast Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City, where he was also Professor of Medicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. In this role, he developed more effective treatments for all stages of breast cancer, while also exploring novel prevention opportunities. As CEO of ASCO, Dr. Hudis’ focus is on education, research and promotion of the highest quality of care by the Society’s nearly 45,000 members. Key initiatives include the acceleration of CancerLinQ, ASCO’s focused effort to increase insights and learning from the rapidly accumulating electronic records of routine care provided by clinicians.

November 22nd 2019:

Gordon Mills, M.D., Ph.D.

Oregon Health and Science University

“Systems Approach to Rational Combination Therapy with PARP Inhibitors.”

Sponsor: Dr Marc Lippman

Gordon B. Mills, MD, PhD, is the Director of Precision Oncology, Director of SMMART trials, Associate Director, ad interim, for Clinical Research and holds the Wayne and Julie Drinkward Endowed Chair in Precision Oncology in the Knight Cancer Institute. In these roles, he is responsible for the implementation of an integrated program of tumor analysis, decision-making and implementation of novel precision oncology trials.

dr Mills has published more than 1,000 papers and holds more than 20 patents. . dr Mills has served as principal investigator or project investigator on many national peer-reviewed grants including NIH/NCI SPOREs and team grants (U01 and U54), Stand Up To Cancer, Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, and Komen Foundation grants. His efforts have been recognized in the Komen Foundation’s Brinker Award for Scientific Excellence and the Finneran Family Prize for Translational Research. The majority of Dr. Mills’ trainees have developed successful research careers rising through the ranks to full professor, department chairs, and institute directors. Based on this role, he has been nominated for and awarded multiple mentoring awards, including the Stand Up 2 Cancer Laura Ziskin Prize for Mentoring and the inaugural Waun Ki Hong award for mentorship.

November 8th 2019:

Benita Katzenellenbogen, Ph.D.

University of Illinois

“Estrogen Receptors, Breast Cancer, and Overcoming Therapy resistance and Aggressiveness Factors.”

Sponsors: Dr Marc Lippman, Dr Robert Clarke

dr Benita S. Katzenellenbogen is the Swanlund Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Illinois and College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign. She is a world-renowned expert on nuclear hormone receptors, especially estrogen receptors and their actions in breast cancer and reproductive tissues. Her research work constitutes many of the pioneering findings in the area of molecular biology of steroid receptor action that have made her a leading figure in endocrinology and women’s health. She continues to make critical contributions that shape the way we think about these important areas of biology and medicine.

Her seminal work elucidated fundamental aspects of structure-function relationships and mechanisms of action of the estrogen receptors alpha and beta, and demonstrated that estrogens have a remarkably broad spectrum of effects on numerous gene networks and pathways in breast cancer cells. This research has provided a framework for our current understanding of the molecular basis for the action of selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) such as tamoxifen and raloxifene in target cells, and for the development of anti-hormonal treatments that are used in breast cancer treatment and prevention. Her laboratory demonstrated that estrogen receptors regulate and function along with multiple cell signaling pathways involving kinase cascades and growth factors, and that these inputs converge at the level of chromatin to regulate gene expression, work that presaged the current active interest in both the non-genomic actions of estrogens and the cross-talk between nuclear receptors and other cell signaling pathways and their contributions to endocrine resistance. Her laboratory has also identified factors associated with aggressiveness and early time to recurrence and their regulation in different subtypes of breast cancer. She has also characterized the activities of estrogens in menopausal hormone replacement therapies, and diverse ligands for estrogen receptors, including environmental estrogens, phytoestrogens such as genistein, and estrogen receptor subtype-selective ligands in various estrogen target tissues.

dr Katzenellenbogen has published over 300 research articles, contributed 30 book chapters, and co-edited a book on hormone-dependent cancers. She is the recipient of numerous awards, honors, and special fellowships from governmental, private, and academic institutions, including the MERIT Award from the National Cancer Institute, NIH, the Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction (2009) from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Breast Cancer Foundation, the Jill Rose Award from The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the Ernst O

Related searches to Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested Insight On His Net Worth And Bio

Information related to the topic Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested Insight On His Net Worth And Bio

Here are the search results of the thread Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested Insight On His Net Worth And Bio from Bing. You can read more if you want.

You have just come across an article on the topic Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested Insight On His Net Worth And Bio. If you found this article useful, please share it. Thank you very much.

Articles compiled by Bangkokbikethailandchallenge.com. See more articles in category: DIGITAL MARKETING

Louis Ziskin Net Worth

Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested?

Louis Ziskin Wikipedia Bio

Five Arrested For Kidnapping RTI Activist In Sambalpur

Images related to the topicFive Arrested For Kidnapping RTI Activist In Sambalpur

See some more details on the topic Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested Insight On His Net Worth And Bio here:

Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested? Insight On His Net Worth And …

LA Entrepreneur Arrested in Thai Kidnap and Ransom Plot

Who Is Comedian Des Bishop? Hannah Berner Wikipedia … – ZGR.net

Gage Graham-Arbuthnot Wikipedia, Age, Biography, Height …

LA Entrepreneur Once Tied to Large Drug Ring Arrested in Thai Kidnap and Ransom Plot

Fight Club

Oncology Seminar Series – Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center

Information related to the topic Why Was Louis Ziskin Arrested Insight On His Net Worth And Bio

Leave a Comment Cancel reply