UP FRONT
The Society Pages
Gary Gilliland
Named as Fred
Hutch’s New
President and
Director
On January 2, Gary Gilliland, MD, PhD, began
his term as the new president and director
of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
The research center made the announcement
on November 20, 2014, following a national
search.
Dr. Gilliland, an expert in cancer genetics
and precision medicine, spent 20 years on the
faculty at Harvard where he was professor
of medicine at Harvard Medical School and
professor of stem cell and regenerative biology
at Harvard University. The bulk of his initial
work at Harvard focused on the genetic basis
of blood cancers.
In 2009, Dr. Gilliland left Harvard to go to Merck Research Laboratories, and returned to academia in 2013
as the vice dean and vice president of precision medicine at Perelman School of Medicine at the University
of Pennsylvania. There, he worked to bring together
research and clinical care initiatives across disciplines to
create a model for delivering personalized medicine to
patients with a range of diseases.
Karmanos
Cancer Institute
Awarded $5.3
Million Grant to
Improve Care for
Patients with
Blood-Related
Cancers
The Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in
Detroit, Michigan, recently received a $5.3 million
grant from the Dresner
Foundation to continue
to build its blood-related
cancer services. The
grant, which will be
distributed over the next
five years, will be used
to advance hematologic
malignancies research in
ASHClinicalNews.org
several ways, according
to a press release from
the Institute, including
creating an endowed
chair position, helping recruit gifted scientists and
fellowship positions, and
establishing a patient
registry and tissue bank
for blood-related cancers.
It will also establish a Patient Assistance Fund to
help low-income cancer
patients with financial
challenges during their
cancer care. “This grant
will help recruit additional physicians with unique
research skills to help
bring new clinical trials
and treatment options
for patients with myelodysplastic syndrome, leukemia, and other blood
Donald Metcalf,
“Father
of Modern
Hematology”
(1929-2014)
Dr. Gilliland has earned numerous honors for his
work throughout his career – including ASH’s William
Dameshek Prize in 2003.
“What I’m most proud of in my career are the people
I’ve trained or whose careers I’ve supported,” Dr. Gilliland said in a press release from Fred Hutch. “They are
in academic medical centers all over the country – and
I take great vicarious pleasure in their successes and
accomplishments.”
cancers,” said Charles A.
Schiffer, MD, multidisciplinary team leader of
Malignant Hematology,
Karmanos Cancer Institute, who will serve as
the first endowed Joseph
Dresner Chair for Hematologic Malignancies.
Moffitt Cancer
Center Starts
New CardioOncology
Program
The Moffitt Cancer Center
recently announced a
collaboration between
itself and the University
of South Florida (USF).
Michael Fradley, MD, a
cardiologist-oncologist at
USF, will serve as director
of the new cardio-oncology program, working with
Roohi Ismail-Khan, MD,
a medical oncologist with
the Center for Women’s
Oncology at Moffitt.
Chemotherapy drugs and
radiation treatments save
lives by killing cancer cells,
but they often have a
destructive impact on the
heart and cardiovascular
system. The new cardiooncology program is
designed to treat patients
who develop cardiovascular complications after receiving cancer treatments,
as well as to evaluate the
“cardiotoxicity” of new
molecular-targeted cancer
therapies.
Donald Metcalf, MD, well known for his
pioneering work on the regulation of
blood cell formation, died December 15,
2014, at the age of 85.
Born February 26, 1929, Dr. Metcalf
joined the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in 1954 and
worked there nearly continuously until
his retirement in September 2014.
His work revolutionized the understanding of many blood cell diseases and
their treatment. Beginning in 1965, he
worked to co-develop specialized culture
techniques for growing blood cells, which
led to the discovery of colony-stimulating factors (CSFs), hormones that
regulate white blood cell formation. Dr.
Metcalf’s work led to the successful cloning and mass production of CSFs, which
can speed recovery in cancer patients
following chemotherapy or radiation
therapy. These findings have benefited
millions of patients worldwide.
His revolutionary
work has benefited
millions of patients
worldwide.
Dr. Metcalf’s recent work led to the
development of a new blood cell regulator, leukemia inhibitory factor, which acts
on multiple tissues in the body and on the
SOCS family of genes, which control blood
cell responses to cytokines.
Dr. Metcalf has received many prestigious honors during his career, including
ASH’s E. Donnall Thomas Lecture and
Prize, the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award, the inaugural Salk
Institute Prize for Research Excellence, the
Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize of Columbia
University, and the Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal of the U.S. Natio