American Association for Cancer Research Inaugurates New Leadership at Virtual AACR Annual Business Meeting of Members 2021

David A. Tuveson, MD, PhD, FAACR, inaugurated as President

PHILADELPHIA — The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) welcomes David A. Tuveson, MD, PhD, FAACR, as President of the organization for 2021-2022. He was inaugurated during the AACR Annual Business Meeting, held virtually on Monday, April 12.

Tuveson is director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, where he is also the Roy J. Zuckerberg Professor of Cancer Research. Additionally, he is chief scientist for the Lustgarten Foundation in Woodbury, New York, the largest pancreatic cancer research philanthropic organization. Tuveson is a medical staff affiliate at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and works closely with the Cancer Institute at Northwell Health on Long Island. Additionally, Tuveson serves on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute. He is a world-renowned physician-scientist whose basic and translational research focuses on the biology of pancreatic cancer and on identifying new approaches for diagnosing and treating the disease.

“I am humbly honored to serve the cancer research community as AACR President,” said Tuveson. “I look forward to working with trainees, researchers, physicians, educators, policymakers, patients and their advocates, funding agencies, and corporate colleagues to understand and overcome the scientific and logistical challenges we still face, and to improve patient outcomes. Collectively, we can solve the hardest problems and help the most cancer patients.”

Tuveson, an AACR member since 2003, served as a member of the AACR Board of Directors from 2018 to 2020. He is a scientific editor of the AACR journal Cancer Discovery. Among his other contributions to the AACR, he has served as vice chair for the AACR Annual Meeting Program Committee in 2020-2021 and 2018-2019; chair of the AACR Virtual Conference: COVID-19 and Cancer in 2020; chair of the Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Cancer Research Committee in 2019; cochair of the Special Conference Pancreatic Cancer: Innovations in Research and Treatment in 2014; cochair of the Program Committee for the AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in 2008; and cochair of the Mentored Grants and Research Fellowships Committee in 2008. He has also served as a member of multiple AACR committees, including the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network-AACR Innovative Grants Scientific Review Committee (2008-2010); the Program Committee (2008) and Scientific Review Committee (2007) for the AACR International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development; and the Annual Meeting Education Committee (2006 and 2011). In addition, Tuveson has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for Stand Up To Cancer since 2012. The AACR is the Scientific Partner of Stand Up To Cancer.

Tuveson was elected to the 2020 class of Fellows of the AACR Academy. He has been recognized with a host of other honors and awards throughout his career, including the Hamdan Award for Medical Research Excellence – Pancreatic Diseases (2016), the Jan Waldenstrom Medal from the Swedish Society of Oncology (2014), the Ruth C. Brusky Award for Excellence in Clinical Research on Pancreatic Cancer, PancreasFest (2010), the Norbert and Suzanne Schnog Lectureship for Yale University (2005), the Frank Brooks Memorial Lectureship for the American Pancreatic Association (2004), the Rita Allen Foundation Scholar Award (2003), the AACR-PanCAN Career Development Award in pancreatic cancer research (2003), and the Forbeck Scholar Award from the William Guy Forbeck Research Foundation (2000). He is also an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2016) and was a recipient of the Physician-Scientist Early Career Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1999).

Tuveson received his doctoral and medical degrees from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1994. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1997, and completed a fellowship in hematology and oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Cancer Center in 2000. Tuveson was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT from 1997 to 2002. 

Additional Leadership Changes

Lisa M. Coussens, PhD, FAACR, associate director for Basic Research at the Knight Cancer Institute, professor and chair of the Cell, Developmental, and Cancer Biology Department, and Hildegard Lamfrom Endowed Chair in Basic Science at Oregon Health & Science University, was inducted as the AACR President-Elect for 2021-2022. Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, FAACR, professor of medicine, surgery, and molecular and medical pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and director of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center Tumor Immunology Program, will now serve as immediate Past President of the AACR.