AACR Congratulates Members Elected to the National Academy of Medicine
10 members of the AACR elected, including Fellow of the AACR Academy Drew Pardoll, MD, PhD
PHILADELPHIA – The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) congratulates 10 AACR members who have been elected to the 2021 class of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), including Drew Pardoll, MD, PhD, a Fellow of the AACR Academy.
Election to the National Academy of Medicine is one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. The academy elected a total of 90 regular members and 10 international members this year.
Elected to the NAM were:
Drew Pardoll, MD, PhD, FAACR, Abeloff Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and director, Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. He was recognized by NAM for “discovering two immune cell types and leadership in cancer immunotherapy, which has revolutionized oncology.” Pardoll is a Fellow of the AACR Academy, which recognizes and honors distinguished scientists whose major scientific contributions have propelled significant innovation and progress against cancer.
Samuel Achilefu, PhD, Michel M. Ter-Pogossian Professor of Radiology and director of the Optical Imaging Laboratory, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine. Recognized by NAM for “outstanding contributions in the field of optical imaging for identifying sites of disease and characterizing biologic phenomena noninvasively.”
Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, Richard E. Wilson MD Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School; associate surgeon, Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center; and group chair, Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. Recognized by NAM for “numerous leadership roles in multi-institutional cancer clinical research consortia and advancing the quality and scope of research to bring important new treatments to people with cancer.”
Maximilian Diehn, MD, PhD, associate professor, vice chair of research, and division chief of radiation and cancer biology, Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford University School of Medicine. Recognized by NAM for “developing and clinically translating novel diagnostic technologies for facilitating precision medicine techniques, and for integrating advanced precision medicine into the area of liquid biopsies.”
Yuman Fong, MD, Sangiacomo Family Chair in Surgical Oncology, chair, Department of Surgery, City of Hope. Recognized by NAM for “transforming the fields of liver surgery, robotics in surgery, imaging and display in medicine, and gene therapy.”
William C. Hahn, MD, PhD, executive vice president and chief operating officer, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and William Rosenberg Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School. Recognized by NAM for “fundamental contributions in the understanding of cancer initiation, maintenance, and progression.”
Helen Elisabeth Heslop, MD, DSc (Hon), Dan L Duncan Chair, professor of pediatrics and medicine, and director, Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine. Recognized by NAM for “pioneering work in complex biological therapies, leadership in clinical immunotherapy, and for being the first to employ donor and banked cytotoxic T cells to treat lethal virus-associated malignancies and infections in pivotal trials.”
Michelle Monje, MD, PhD, associate professor, Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University Medical Center. Recognized by NAM for “making groundbreaking discoveries at the intersection of neurodevelopment, neuroplasticity, and brain tumor biology.”
Melissa Andrea Simon, MD, MPH, George H. Gardner Professor of Clinical Gynecology and professor of obstetrics and gynecology, medical social sciences, and preventive medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Recognized by NAM for “paradigm-shifting implementation research that has elevated the science of health care disparities and has transformed women’s health practice, policy, and outcomes.”
Anil Kumar Sood, MD, FACOG, FACS, professor and vice chair for translational research, Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Recognized by NAM for “discovering the mechanistic basis of chronic stress on cancer and the pivotal role of tumor-IL6 in causing paraneoplastic thrombocytosis; developing the first RNAi therapeutics and translating multiple new drugs from lab to clinic; and devising and implementing a paradigm-shifting surgical algorithm for advanced ovarian cancer, dramatically increasing complete resection rates.