In each of the forthcoming issues, a selection of Editorial Board members and Authors will be featured. A full overview can be found at http://www.moloncol.org.
Anne‐Lise Børresen‐Dale
Head of Department of Genetics, Institute for Cancer Research, Rikshospitalet–Radiumhospitalet Medical Centre and Professor of Molecular Tumour Biology at University of Oslo, Norway
A.‐L. Børresen‐Dale has a large scientific production of more than 300 papers and books and is among the leading geneticists in research on molecular biology of breast cancer. She came to the Cancer Research Institute, Department of Genetics in 1987 and under her leadership a novel mutation detection system was developed, and further used for screening for TP53 mutations in large series of tumors, showing that mutations in this gene are relevant for prognostic evaluation, progression of the disease and prediction of therapy response. In collaboration with the Professors D. Botstein and P. Brown, Stanford University, California, she performed pioneering work on expression profiling of breast tumors using genome wide microarrays. They identified five distinct subtypes of breast cancer (luminal subtypes A and B, a basal‐like subtype, an ERBB2 and a normal like subtype) that were associated with significant differences in survival. This was a fundamentally important discovery.
She has received several prizes and awards; the two most recent being the SalusAnsvar Medical prize for Outstanding Research in Tumor biology in 2002, and the Swiss Bridge Award for Outstanding Cancer Research in 2004. She is also an elected Member of The Royal Norwegian Academy of Science and of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Børresen‐Dale has served on the Board of Directors for AACR and is currently President Elect for EACR.
Website: http://www.radium.no/genetics/
E‐mail: a.l.borresen‐dale@medisin.uio.no
Professor Dr. Med. Franco Cavalli
President of UICC
Director, Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland (IOSI), Bellinzona, Switzerland
Franco Cavalli, MD, FRCP, is currently Director of IOSI and President of the International Union against Cancer (UICC). He graduated from the Medical Faculty in Bern, where he also received his training in Medical Oncology, as well as in Brussels and London. Cavalli has been Chairman of the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) and of the Early Clinical Trials Group of EORTC.
He was one of the founders of the Phase I studies in Europe. Later he devoted his research time mainly to malignant lymphomas; his group has made significant contributions mainly in clarifying the biology of extra nodal lymphomas. Ten years ago he created the International Extra nodal Lymphoma Study Group (IELSG), which now encompasses about 150 institutions in four continents. Every 3rd year he organizes the International Conference on Malignant Lymphomas in Lugano, the only really global conference on clinical and basic research in lymphoid neoplasms. Together with S. Kaye (London) and H. Hansen (Copenhagen) he is the editor of the Textbook of Medical Oncology. He was also the founding editor of Annals of Oncology. He has published more than 400 articles in peer‐review journals and has received 15 awards.
Website: http://www.iosi.ch/en/iosi.html
E‐mail: iosidirezione@iosi.ch
Lee M. Ellis, MD
Professor of Surgery and Cancer Biology, The John E. and Dorothy J. Harris
Professor in Gastrointestinal Cancer Research, University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA
Lee M. Ellis, MD, completed his residency in surgery at the University of Florida in 1990. Dr. Ellis went on to complete a Surgical Oncology fellowship at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he has been on the faculty since 1993. He has a dual appointment as a Professor in the Departments of Surgical Oncology and Cancer Biology.
Dr. Ellis has a clinical practice in Surgical Oncology, where he operates on patients with colorectal cancer and liver metastases. Academically, Dr. Ellis has established a reputation for expertise in the area of angiogenesis and growth factor receptors in gastrointestinal malignancies. His group was the first to demonstrate that VEGF was a valid target in colorectal cancer. He has been a consultant to numerous branches of the NCI including CTEP. In 2000, he was awarded the Faculty Scholar Award from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and in 2005, The John E. and Dorothy J. Harris Professor in Gastrointestinal Cancer Research.
Dr. Ellis serves on eight editorial boards, including the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, and Molecular Oncology and has authored over 180 peer‐reviewed publications, 80 invited reviews and editorials, three books, and 30 book chapters. He has served as a bridge in translating research between the laboratory and the clinic.
Dr. Ellis has published several important editorials in journals such as the NEJM, Cell, Cancer Cell, Nature Medicine, JNCI, JCO, Nature Drug Discovery, and Lancet. He is co‐chair of the largest clinical angiogenesis meeting in the world held in Jan/Feb annually. Dr. Ellis is Director of the Angiogenesis Multidisciplinary Research Program at M.D. Anderson. He is a consultant to numerous Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies involved in targeted therapies. Dr. Ellis serves in a leadership role in the major cancer societies such as ASCO, AACR, and the SSO, where he has served on numerous committees. He is currently chair of the 2007 GI Cancers Symposium.
Website: http://www.mdanderson.org
E‐mail: lellis@mdanderson.org
H. Barton Grossman, MD
Professor Departments of Urology and Cancer Biology, and Deputy Chairman Department of Urology, University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA
H. Barton Grossman holds the W.A. “Tex” and Deborah Moncrief, Jr. Distinguished Chair in Urology at The University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is a Professor in the Departments of Urology and Cancer Biology and Deputy Chairman of the Department of Urology at M.D. Anderson. He has a long‐standing clinical and basic research interest in bladder cancer. He is currently Co‐PI of the M.D. Anderson SPORE focused on bladder cancer and a member of the Program for the Assessment of Clinical Cancer Tests (PACCT) Strategy Group of the National Cancer Institute. He is on the editorial boards of Journal of Urology, Urologic Oncology, and Oncology Reports. He is a reviewer for multiple journals and has over 200 peer‐reviewed publications.
Website: http://www.mdanderson.org
Dr. Brian Haab
Director, Laboratory of Cancer Immunodiagnostics, Van Andel Research Institute, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Dr. Brian Haab is a Scientific Investigator and Director of the Laboratory of Cancer Immunodiagnostics at the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Prior to joining the Van Andel Research Institute in May 2000, Dr. Haab performed post‐doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Patrick O. Brown at Stanford University. He received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1998, and his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1992. His research focuses on the development of array‐based protein analysis methods and their application to the study of cancer‐associated alterations to secreted proteins.
Website: http://www.vai.org/
E‐mail: Brian.Haab@vai.org
Dr. Daniel F. Hayes
Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan and Director, Breast Oncology Program, University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, USA
Dr. Daniel Hayes has a long history of involvement in laboratory, translational, and clinical research in breast cancer, particularly in tumor marker development and evaluation, and novel therapy development. He has served as the Vice Chair of the Breast Committee of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, and chaired the Solid Tumor Correlative Sciences Committee of the CALGB, from 1996–2001. He now holds a similar position in the Southwest Oncology Group, and he chairs the U.S. Breast Cancer Intergroup Correlative Sciences Committee.
Dr. Hayes has or is serving on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, including the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, The Breast Journal, Clinical Breast Cancer, and Breast Cancer Research. Dr. Hayes has served on several prestigious committees, including the recently convened Institute of Medicine Committee which authored the report “Mammography and Beyond,” and he co‐chairs the Tumor Marker Expert Advisory Panel for the American Society of Clinical Oncology. This considerable experience in designing, performing, and evaluating clinical trials in breast cancer are particularly important for his role in this grant, as a consultant, advisor and co‐investigator for studies of patient oriented decision aids.
Website: www.med.umich.edu/
E‐mail: hayesdf@umich.edu
Tony Hunter
Director, Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA
Tony Hunter is an American Cancer Society Research Professor and Director of the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California at San Diego. He is best known for his discovery of tyrosine phosphorylation, and the elucidation of its role in cell proliferation and malignant transformation. His general area of interest is in understanding mechanisms of signal transduction that utilize protein phosphorylation, ubiquitination and sumoylation and are involved in cell proliferation and growth control, and in cell cycle checkpoint activation in response to DNA damage.
Website: http://www.salk.edu/
E‐mail: hunter@salk.edu
Professor Marja Jäättelä, MD, PhD
The Danish Cancer Society, Institute of Cancer Biology and Center for Genotoxic Stress Research, Copenhagen, Denmark
Marja Jäättelä is the Head of the Apoptosis Department at the Institute of Cancer Biology, Danish Cancer Society and Professor in Tumor Biology at the University of Copenhagen. In her research, she has followed her original ideas on the existence of “hidden” cell death pathways in therapy‐resistant cancer cells and her group was among the first to show the existence of such pathways and their importance in cancer biology. Her current research focuses on exploring the cancer‐associated changes in the composition (proteins and lipids) and trafficking of lysosomes and autophagosomes as well as cancer relevant signalling pathways responsible for cross communication between various cell death and survival mechanisms.
Website: http://www.apoptosis.dk/
E‐mail: mj@cancer.dk
Holger Moch
Professor of Pathology, University Zurich, Switzerland
Dr. Holger Moch is Professor of Pathology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He is the Chairman of the Institute for Surgical Pathology as well as Clinical Co‐director in the Department of Pathology of the University Hospital Zurich. Dr. Moch is graduate of the Humboldt University Berlin (Charité), Germany and completed his residency training at the Institute for Pathology, University Basel, Switzerland.
His research program is devoted to the identification of clinically significant biomarkers in cancer as well as the evaluation of novel molecular technologies in surgical pathology. The current research interests are focused on tumor metastasis and VHL‐regulated genes. Dr. Moch is a member of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, the editorial board of various journals and boards of several cancer research foundations. He is member of the Executive Committee of the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK), the Cancer Network Zurich (CNZ), and the Competence Center for Systems Physiology and Metabolic Diseases (CC‐SPMD) of the University Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology Zurich (ETH).
Website: http://www.pathologie.usz.ch
Professor Moshe Oren
Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Moshe Oren is Professor at the Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. In 1982, together with Dr. Arnold Levine, he cloned the p53 gene. In 1989, the Oren group demonstrated that wild type (wt) p53, but not cancer‐associated mutants thereof, can suppress oncogenic transformation, thereby providing experimental evidence for p53 being a tumor suppressor. In 1991, the Oren group reported that p53 can induce apoptosis in cancer cells. More recently, along with Dr. A. Levine, the Oren group first reported that p53 regulates the transcription of the Mdm2 gene and, along with Dr. K. Vousden, that the Mdm2 protein promotes the ubiquitination and degradation of p53, defining an autoregulatory loop that is of great importance in human cancer.
Website: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/
E‐mail: moshe.oren@weizmann.ac.il
Richard L. Schilsky, MD
Professor of Medicine, Associate Dean for Clinical Research, Biological Sciences Division, University of Chicago, USA
Dr. Schilsky earned his MD at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine in 1975. Following a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Memorial Hospital, he received training in Medical Oncology and Clinical Pharmacology at the National Cancer Institute from 1977 to 1981. He then served as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri – Columbia School of Medicine from 1981 to 1984 when he returned to the University of Chicago. At the University of Chicago, he served as Director of the Cancer Research Center from 1991 to 1999 and presently serves as Associate Dean for Clinical Research. Since 1995, Dr. Schilsky has also served as Chairman of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B.
An international expert in gastrointestinal malignancies and cancer pharmacology, he has served on a number of peer‐review and advisory committees for the NCI and the FDA. He has served as a member and Chair of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee for the FDA and as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Dr. Schilsky currently serves as a member of the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors, as a member of the NCI Clinical Trials Working Group, as a member of the NCI Translational Research Working Group and as a member of the NCI Clinical Trials Advisory Committee.
He is a member of the external advisory committees of several comprehensive cancer centers including the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the Mayo Cancer Center, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He has also served as a member of the Selection Committee for the Bristol‐Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research.
Dr. Schilsky is an Associate Editor of Clinical Cancer Research and Cancer and a member of the editorial board of Seminars in Oncology and the Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology. He has published more than 230 articles and book chapters in the medical literature and has edited four books.
Website: http://www.calgb.org
E‐mail: rschilsk@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu
Fred C.G.J. Sweep, PhD
Professor Chemical Endocrinology and Head of Department, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Fred C.G.J. Sweep is Professor of Chemical Endocrinology and Head of the Department of Chemical Endocrinology at the Radboud University, Nijmegen Medical Center. He is board certified in Clinical Chemistry and Endocrinology by The Netherlands Society for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, and registered as a European Clinical Chemist. He studied Medical Biology at the University of Utrecht (1979–1985), where he also obtained his PhD degree (1989) in Pharmacology. He had his training as a Clinical Chemist in Radboud University, Nijmegen Medical Center (1991–1995), where he also completed his training in Endocrinology (1998).
Professor Sweep is a reviewer of many journals, member of editorial boards and has published over 200 peer‐reviewed scientific journal papers.
Fred Sweep is an active member of many different national and international societies devoted to cancer biomarkers. He is secretary of the PathoBiology Group of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and chairman of the Quality Assurance Committee within this group. He also is member of the Translation Research Advisory Committee of the EORTC. In 2006 he chaired the 4th International NCI–EORTC Meeting on Molecular Markers in Cancer, in Atlanta, US. Fred Sweep's department has been developing international Quality Assurance programs for steroid hormone receptors and other biomarkers since 1975. In the early 90s more than 160 laboratories worldwide participated in these programs. Last year's QA programs are running for large multicenter prospective clinical trials on biomarkers in Europe. His current research interests are focused on development of new antibody based assays for biomarkers in oncology with emphasis on proteases and angiogenesis. Within the field of Endocrinology Sweep's department has a long‐standing expertise in thyroid and steroid hormones with special interest in the hypothalamus‐pituitary adrenal/gonadal axis.
Website: http://www.umcn.nl
E‐mail: f.sweep@ace.umcn.nl
Professor David Tarin
Professor of Pathology, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
David Tarin began his research career in 1960 using one of the first electron microscopes installed in Britain to study collagen formation in the skin of Amphioxus, a marine protochordate. Having graduated with a Science degree from the University of Leeds, he went on to study Medicine at the University of Oxford graduating in 1963. He then held Faculty appointments as a Surgical Pathologist at Teaching Hospitals in the Universities of Birmingham and Leeds and at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, University of London from 1965 to 1979. During this period he focused on basic science research and cancer, developmental biology and wound healing, and demonstrated interactions between tumor cells and neighboring host tissues, leading to the development of the concept of the tumor micro‐environment (summarized in Tarin, D., 1972. Tissue Interactions in Carcinogenesis, Academic Press, London).
In 1979 he moved to Oxford University where he became Nuffield Professor of Pathology, Director of the Cancer Diagnosis and Metastasis Research Laboratory and Attending Surgical Pathologist to the United Oxford Hospitals. There he founded and served as chairman and coordinator of the Oxford Breast Diseases Group for 18 years. This consortium of surgeons, medical oncologists, radiotherapists, radiologists and pathologists met weekly to decide the management and care for each breast cancer patient referred to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. The aim was to bring patients the benefits of a caring, coordinated and multidisciplinary team approach to cancer care. Concurrently he conducted research on mechanisms of cancer metastasis (see Tarin et al., 1984. Cancer Res. 44, 3584–3592) and early cancer detection using molecular markers such as CD44 (Matsumura et al., 1992. Lancet 340, 1053–1058).
In 1997 he moved to the University of California, San Diego where he became Director of the UCSD Cancer Center and Associate Dean for Cancer Affairs at UCSD School of Medicine. Here he oversaw the creation of the John and Rebecca Moores, UCSD Cancer Center in a dedicated new building and secured designation of this institute as one of 37 elite Comprehensive Cancer Centers recognized by the National Cancer Institute of the United States. After this he relinquished the Directorship in 2003 to return to research, clinical interests and teaching as a Professor in the Department of Pathology at UCSD.
Tarin's laboratory research has recently focused on the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the spread of cancer in the human body (metastasis), and genes that program tumor cells to thus colonize distant organ (see Montel et al., 2005. Am. J. Path. 166, 1565–1579; Montel et al., 2006. Int. J. Cancer 119, 251–263; Suzuki et al., 2006. Am. J. Path. 169, 673–681). His clinical research has concentrated on using the exceptionally sensitive, non‐invasive methods now available in molecular genetics to facilitate early cancer diagnosis (Woodman et al., 2000. Clin. Cancer Res. 6, 2381–2392).
He is the former President of the International Society of Differentiation, and has served on the editorial boards of several journals, including Cancer Research, Journal of Clinical Pathology, Journal of Pathology, Differentiation, and Molecular Diagnosis. He has been a scientific referee for various peer‐reviewed international journals including Nature, Science, Lancet and the British Journal of Cancer.
Website: http://medicine.ucsd.edu/molpath/
E‐mail: dtarin@ucsd.edu
Timothy J. Yeatman, MD
Professor of Surgery and Interdisciplinary Oncology, Associate Center Director for Translational Research, and Director of Total Cancer Care at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute Tampa, FL, USA
Dr. Yeatman has focused his research on the management of gastrointestinal malignancies with a special research emphasis on using genome scale microarrays to identify the molecular signatures of cancer that provide diagnosis, prognosis and response to therapy. He found that microarray was 88 percent accurate in predicting all tumor types. The results of his investigation, the first such work to be reported in this depth, appeared in the January 2004 issue of the American Journal of Pathology. Recently, Dr. Yeatman has been appointed to the Directorship of Total Cancer Care, a large research project that will lead to personalized cancer care. Dr. Yeatman has received numerous honors and awards including the James IV Association of Surgeons Traveling Fellowship, Europe 2001; the Center Director's Award for Outstanding Research at Moffitt Cancer Center (1998, 1997, 1995); and the James Ewing Foundation Trainee Award, Society of Surgical Oncology, 1997. Additionally, Dr. Yeatman has published more than 120 articles in the top peer‐reviewed journals in his field including the prestigious Nature Genetics, Nature Reviews Cancer, as well as the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and Cancer Research.
Dr. Yeatman has been continuously funded over the course of the past 12 years through grants from the NCI and the American Cancer Society. Dr. Yeatman earned his MD at Emory University; Surgical Internship & Residency at the University of Florida; and Surgical Oncology Fellowship at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Website: http://www.moffittcancercenter.com/
E‐mail: yeatman@moffitt.usf.edu
(2007), Personal Profiles, Molecular Oncology, 1, doi:10.1016/j.molonc.2007.05.003.