Taking a Bow: ASCO Salutes Leaders in Cancer Care

Nine cancer researchers whose work has contributed to significant milestones in the understanding and treatment of the disease will be honored along with a US senator at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting June 3-7 in Chicago, Illinois.

ASCO, which bestows the awards every year, says it considers researchers, patient advocates, and public leaders in choosing the honorees. This year’s recipients are:

Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, director of the LeBow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and the Jerome Lipper Center for Multiple Myeloma at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, for work in identifying and validating multiple myeloma tumor cell targets.

Robert A. Weinberg, PhD, a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, for his discovery of ras, the first human oncogene, and for isolating the Rb gene, the first known tumor-suppressing gene.

Jamie H. Von Roenn, MD, professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and co-director of the Cancer Control Program at Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center in Chicago, Illinois, for her efforts to integrate palliative care into oncology treatment, particularly in breast cancer.

Luca Gianni, MD, director of the Department of Medical Oncology and head of a drug development project in solid tumors at the San Raffaele Cancer Center in Milan, Italy, for research into treatment regimens and therapies for breast cancer.

John M. Bennett, MD, professor emeritus of Medicine, Pathology, and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, for his interest in cancer in the aging population. He is editor of Leukemia Research and a founder of the International Society for Geriatric Oncology.

Lee J. Helman, MD, scientific director for Clinical Research at the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research and a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, for his work in pediatric oncology, including his current focus on the biology and treatment of sarcomas.

Benjamin O. Anderson, MD, professor of Surgery and Global Health Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, for his leadership efforts in the movement to establish best practices and improve clinical care for breast cancer patients internationally.

David Khayat, MD, PhD, head of the Department of Medical Oncology at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, France, for his leadership in improving cancer treatment and increasing awareness in France and throughout the world. He formerly headed the French National Cancer Institute.

Daniel G. Haller, MD, professor of Medicine and attending physician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, for his research into the management of gastrointestinal cancers. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Sherrod Brown, US senator from Ohio, who has served in Congress since 1993, for leading efforts to mandate insurance coverage for patients who participate in clinical trials as part of the recently enacted federal healthcare law and for avid support of increased funding for research.