American Association for Cancer Research Inaugurates New Leadership at the AACR Annual Business Meeting of Members 2023

Philip D. Greenberg, MD, FAACR, Inaugurated as President

PHILADELPHIA – The members of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) welcome Philip D. Greenberg, MD, FAACR, as the AACR President for 2023-2024. He was inaugurated during the AACR’s Annual Business Meeting of Members during the AACR Annual Meeting 2023, April 14-19 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

Greenberg is the Rona Jaffe Foundation Endowed Chair and professor and head of the Program in Immunology, Clinical Research Division, at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. He is also a professor of medicine and immunology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. An internationally recognized leader in the field of cancer immunobiology, Greenberg has made groundbreaking contributions to examining host T-cell responses to pathogenic viral infections and cancers. His work has led to crucial insights into the understanding of the mechanisms by which T cells distinguish tumor cells from normal cells and has fueled the advancement of adoptive T-cell therapy approaches in various cancers, including leukemia and pancreatic cancer. His research has also demonstrated that CD4-positive helper T cells work both collaboratively and independently of CD8-positive cytotoxic T cells to eradicate tumor cells. This work has since been applied to the development of treatments for late-stage melanoma and leukemia, and is in development for several other malignancies.

“This is an extraordinarily exciting time to be involved in cancer research in general, and, for myself, cancer immunology in particular. The development and application of new technologies to biology has led to an explosion of information and insights into how cancers develop and progress, and has shed light on the vulnerabilities of cancer cells that can potentially be targeted,” said Greenberg. “The rapid pace of advances is both exhilarating on one hand and exhausting on the other, and has highlighted that the complexity of cancer biology will require coordinated multidisciplinary efforts to effectively tackle. One great strength of the AACR is that it incorporates people from all those disciplines, and one value of a large meeting like our annual meeting is that it brings everyone together to interact, learn from each other, and hopefully establish new and productive collaborations.”

Greenberg has been an AACR member since 2015, served on the AACR’s Board of Directors from 2017-2020, and was elected to the Fellows of the AACR Academy in 2019. He has previously served as a member of the AACR’s Finance and Audit Committee (2019-2022), vice chair of the AACR Annual Meeting Program Committee (2019-2020), member of the AACR’s Continuing Medical Education committee (2014-2017), member of the AACR Annual Meeting Education Committee (2015-2016), cochair (2016) and member (2015) of the CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference scientific committee, and member of the AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology selection committee (2012-2014). Greenberg is currently a member of the AACR’s Cancer Immunology Working Group.

Greenberg serves as co-editor-in-chief of the AACR journal Cancer Immunology Research, where he was previously senior editor (2012-2015). From 1994-1997, Greenberg served on the editorial board for the AACR journal Clinical Cancer Research. He was also a member of the steering committee for the 2017 edition of the AACR Cancer Progress Report. 

Greenberg was a member of the Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C)-Cancer Research Institute Cancer Immunology Dream Team and is currently a member of the SU2C-Lustgarten Foundation (LF) Pancreatic Cancer Dream Team. He was a reviewer of the SU2C-LF CAR T Research Team (2017-2020), the SU2C-Farrah Fawcett Foundation Human Papillomavirus Research Team (2016-2020), and the SU2C-LF Pancreatic Cancer Dream Team (2014-2017). The AACR is the Scientific Partner of Stand Up To Cancer.

Greenberg has received numerous honors and awards throughout his remarkable career, including the Precision Medicine World Conference Luminary Award (2020), American Society of Hematology E. Donnall Thomas Lecture and Prize (2019), Seattle Business Magazine Gold Award as Leader in Health Care for Achievements in Medical Research (2018), Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Richard Smalley Memorial Award (2018), Cancer Research Institute’s William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Tumor Immunology (2011), International Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Team Science Award for Career Achievements (2010), and the NIH MERIT Award (1991-1997, and 1997-2007). In addition to being a Fellow of the AACR Academy, Greenberg was elected to the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Inaugural Class of Fellows of the Academy of Immuno-Oncology (2021) and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists (2019), Fellow of the American College of Physicians (2008), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2007), and elected Member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.

Greenberg received his medical degree from the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, and completed his residency in medicine at University Hospital, University of California, San Diego, along with a research fellowship in immunology at the University of California, San Diego, and a clinical and research fellowship in oncology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

ADDITIONAL LEADERSHIP CHANGES

Patricia M. LoRusso, DO, PhD (hc), FAACR, professor of medicine in medical oncology; chief of experimental therapeutics; associate cancer center director for experimental therapeutics; and leader of the Phase I Disease Aligned Research Team at Yale Cancer Center, was inducted as the AACR President-Elect for 2023-2024. Lisa M. Coussens, PhD, FAACR, FAIO, chair of the department of cell, developmental and cancer biology and associate director for basic research in the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University, where she also holds the Hildegard Lamfrom Endowed Chair in Basic Science, will serve as immediate Past President of the AACR for 2023-2024.