Cancer Center

Research Symposium: Recent Advances in Translational Pediatric Oncology

The Center for Childhood Cancer Research at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia presents the inaugural research symposium, "Recent Advances in Translational Pediatric Oncology."

This one-day event will focus on cutting-edge research impacting the field of cancer in general, with particular relevance to the pediatric cancer problem. We look forward to hearing about the latest discoveries in oncology research and addressing the challenges and opportunities that the pediatric oncology community faces in the area of translational oncology.

Date

Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012

Location 

Colket Translational Research Building, 3501 Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia PA 19104

Schedule

Registration

Register online for the 2012 Center for Childhood Cancer Research Symposium: Recent Advances in Translational Pediatric Oncology.

Speakers

Michael Kastan, MD, PhD

Duke Cancer Institute

KastanDr. Kastan is the Executive Director of the Duke Cancer Institute. He earned MD and PhD degrees from the Washington University School of Medicine and did his clinical training in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at Johns Hopkins.

He was a Professor of Oncology, Pediatrics, and Molecular Biology at Johns Hopkins prior to becoming Chair of the Hematology-Oncology Department and later Cancer Center Director at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, before moving to Duke in 2012. He is a Pediatric Oncologist and a cancer biologist; his laboratory research concentrates on DNA damage and repair, tumor suppressor genes, and causes of cancer related to genetic predisposition and environmental exposures. His discoveries have made a major impact on our understanding of both how cancers develop and how they respond to chemotherapy and radiation therapy and his publications reporting the role of p53 and ATM in DNA damage signaling are among the most highly cited publications in the biomedical literature of the past two decades.

He has received numerous honors for his highly cited work, including election to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine and receiving the 47th annual AACR-G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to basic cancer research. He has served as Chairman of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute and on the Board of Directors of the American Association for Cancer Research. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Molecular Cancer Research and Editor of the textbook Clinical Oncology.

More about Dr. Kastan

 

Adolfo Ferrando, MD, PhD

Columbia University

Adolfo Ferrando, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Pediatrics at Columbia University. He received his MD and PhD from University of Oviedo in Asturias, Spain, and conducted his postdoctoral research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston.

 

 

Stephan Grupp, MD, PhD

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

GruppAs an attending physician in the Cancer Center, the director of Translational Research of the Center for Childhood Cancer Research, and the director of the Stem Cell Laboratory, Dr. Grupp takes on many roles at CHOP. But in each of them, he's a pediatric oncologist working to improve outcomes for children battling difficult cancers.

Dr. Grupp trained at Harvard, at Boston Children’s and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and came to CHOP in 1996. In one of his clinical roles, Dr. Grupp specializes in the most aggressive form of neuroblastoma, working alongside a world-class team of physicians and multi-disciplinary specialists who are dedicated to treating this disease. The neuroblastoma team at CHOP studies the patient’s genetics and the unique characteristics of their disease to offer a personalized treatment approach. This team was part of the group that did the nationwide clinical trial establishing antibody-based immunotherapy as the new standard of care in neuroblastoma. Outside of the clinic, in the lab and the hospital, Dr. Grupp is a scientist and stem cell transplanter. In his Stem Cell Laboratory the team manages cell processing, both collecting the original cells and engineering the cells to the right cell type gets into the patient. Dr. Grupp is also the chair of the Stem Cell Transplant Discipline and transplant clinical trial development for the nationwide Children’s Oncology Group (COG).

More about Dr. Grupp

 

Kevin Shannon, MD

University of California, San Francisco

ShannonKevin Shannon, MD is the Auerback Distinguished Professor of Molecular Oncology in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He also leads the Hematopoietic Malignancies Program at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center and Director of the UCSF Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP).

Dr. Shannon received his MD from Cornell University, obtained residency training in pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and completed a fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at UCSF. He served 10 years as in the US Navy Medical Corps before joining the full-time UCSF faculty in 1992. His research, which focuses on normal and leukemic hematopoiesis, involves interrogating human leukemia specimens and engineering mouse models to uncover genetic and biochemical mechanisms of aberrant growth and to investigate mechanisms of drug response and resistance. The roles of aberrant Ras signaling and of chromosome 7 deletions in hematologic cancers are focused areas of interest. Dr. Shannon’s academic honors include membership in the American Association of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics Award for Excellence in Research, a MERIT Award from the National Cancer Institute, and an American Cancer Society Research Professorship.

More about Dr. Shannon

 

Richard Gilbertson, MD, PhD

St Jude Children’s Research Hospital

GilbertsonRichard Gilbertson trained as a pediatric oncologist in the UK where he earned his MD (1992) and PhD (1998) degrees, becoming a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1995. He moved to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, in 2000 where he is Director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center, Executive Vice President, and Director of the Division of Brain Tumor Research.

He holds the Lillian R. Cannon Comprehensive Cancer Center Director Endowed Chair. His laboratory research is focused on understanding the link between normal development and the cellular and molecular origins of cancer, particularly pediatric brain tumors. He is involved in a series of clinical trials of new treatments of cancer. His responsibilities within the wider research community include chairing the Biology Committee of the NCI-Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, co-Chairing the NCI-Children’s Oncology Group ependymoma committee, co-PI of the Collaborative Ependymoma Research Network and the Principal Investigator of the only inter-institutional Dept. of Defense PRCRP Synergistic Idea Award grant for rare pediatric brain tumors that is developing new treatments of choroid plexus carcinoma.

More about Dr. Gilbertson

 

Matthew Meyerson, MD, PhD

Harvard Medical School and Broad Institute

MeyersonMatthew Meyerson is a leader in the field of cancer genomics with a focus on lung cancer. He serves as Professor of Pathology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, and a Senior Associate Member of the Broad Institute.

Together with Drs. Bill Sellers, Bruce Johnson and Pasi Janne, the Meyerson group identified somatic mutations in the epidermal growth factor gene, EGFR, in lung adenocarcinomas, that predict response to the EGFR kinase inhibitors, gefitinib and erlotinib. The Meyerson group and collaborators have also discovered other activated kinase genes in cancer, including JAK2 in polycythemia vera, FGFR2 in endometrial cancer, ALK in neuroblastoma, and DDR2 and FGFR1 in squamous cell lung cancer.

More about Dr. Meyerson

 

Yäel Mossé, MD

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

MosseDr. Mossé's clinical and research specialty is neuroblastoma, a cancer that starts in the nerve tissues of infants and young children. At Children's Hospital, she has helped develop the nation's foremost clinical and research team devoted to children with neuroblastoma, and offer the possibility of clinical trials not available elsewhere.

In the lab where Dr. Mossé works,  the research team has made great strides in their knowledge of the hereditary predisposition and progression of neuroblastoma. They discovered the gene mutations that are the primary cause of the inherited version of neuroblastoma and that also play a significant role in high-risk forms of the more common, non-inherited form of the disease. These findings are helping researchers translate their knowledge from the lab to new and — one day — curative ideas for patients. Along with the possibility of new therapeutics, we also can offer noninvasive screening for patients with a history that suggests a genetic predisposition to developing neuroblastoma.

More about Dr. Mossé

 

Peter Lebowitz, MD, PhD

Global Oncology Therapeutics, Johnson and Johnson

LebowitzPeter Lebowitz, MD, PhD, is the Oncology Therapeutic Area Head and Vice President and Head of the Hematologic Malignancy Tumor Stronghold (TSH). As Oncology Therapeutic Area Head, Dr. Lebowitz has end-to-end responsibility for bringing science and medicine together with global world-class capabilities in research and drug discovery, biomarkers, translational medicine, and clinical development expertise within this disease area.

He leads a global team focused on combining internal and external innovation approaches to discover and develop new solutions for oncologic and hematologic diseases with high unmet medical need.

In his role as Head of the Hematologic Malignancy TSH, Dr. Lebowitz is responsible for strategic oversight and coordination of Janssen’s hematologic malignancy discovery and development programs and an emerging early portfolio. In close partnership with the Translational Medicine/Early Development and the Full Development/Global Medical Affairs teams, Peter’s team is responsible for delivering on an integrated strategy from target selection through registration studies. In addition, Peter works closely with the Office of External Innovation in cultivating an effective network of scientific colleagues in the academic and pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry and with the Biomarkers team in developing companion cancer diagnostics through partnerships with our diagnostics affiliates as well as external collaborators.

Before joining Janssen, Dr. Lebowitz held senior management positions in both early and late-stage clinical development for another leading pharmaceutical company, where he successfully filed 10 INDs, played a major role in the global registration of three oncology drugs, and led major projects from preclinical discovery through pivotal Phase 3 trials.

Prior to joining the industry, Dr. Lebowitz was Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center, where he established an independently funded translational and clinical research program and was a Principal Investigator on numerous clinical research trials. Dr. Lebowitz graduated from Harvard University and earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine. He then completed his hematology/oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health.

More about Dr. Lebowitz

 

 

 

This event was made possible with the support of the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.

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