Vision Statement
I joined the AACR during my medical oncology fellowship. That same year I attended my first AACR-NCI-EORTC Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics meeting, at which Doug Hanahan first described dual VEGF and PDGF inhibition in his RIP1-Tag2 model. I approached him after his talk, asking if anyone at UCSF was following up on his findings with a clinical trial. When he said “no,” I demurely asked if he would be supportive of my doing so. He enthusiastically responded: “I’ll write a letter of support!” The investigator-initiated, NCI-sponsored trial that explored the impact of that strategy on tumor vasculature and clinical outcome in melanoma was the centerpiece of my subsequently funded K23 grant. I learned that some of the most consequential mentoring comes unexpectedly and, at times, from a distance.
I spent the first decade of my career honing my own definition of clinical-translational cancer research, sorting out how to sustain a career pursuing it. I have spent the second decade recruiting and mentoring the 25 faculty members of the Termeer Center for Targeted Therapy at the MGH Cancer Center, all of whom combine patient care, clinical investigation, and thematic research into novel therapeutics and refining biomarker-defined populations who should receive them. For this work to be scientifically grounded, multi-disciplinary team science is essential: attending collaborators’ lab meetings and collectively evolving our research strategy. This program-building required in-person, local mentoring.
My primary focus is on the development of clinical-translational investigators focused on areas of greatest unmet need: underserved populations by virtue of cancer biology and/or social determinants. Using unmet need as the organizing principle for recruiting, training, and supporting the next generation of cancer investigators, we can achieve a population-representative investigator community. Lack of clearly defined career paths and funding opportunities have diverted would-be investigators into more established disciplines with abundant funding. A new network of mentors from across the AACR community is needed.
The goal of my AACR presidency would be to ascertain and address the gaps in our clinical investigator ranks through the lens of greatest unmet need. Job descriptions are inadequately defined for trainees across oncology research who aim to pursue new research areas, particularly in community-based clinical care settings. Working with academic medical centers, community-based practices in underserved areas, and the NCI, a matrix of career descriptions with funding opportunities must be created and used as our roadmap. The AACR is the natural convener for this multi-stakeholder discussion (exemplified in the 2020 AACR Cancer Disparities Progress Report). My specific agenda is to address the misalignment between investigators’ ambition to address persistent unmet needs and available career paths.
I would like to work with trainees and early-career laboratory scientists alongside clinical investigators to create digital communities in which they share findings and hypotheses, network, collaborate, and nucleate new team science initiatives. I would like to support the formation of interest groups to be defined by our early-career members, providing a more constant point-of-contact for young scientists and the AACR. By virtue of these groups being oriented to similar areas of research, I would like to enlist mentors from across the AACR community to engage in individual and group mentoring. By leveraging the AACR community through digital and in-person interactions, we will be able to meet the next generation AACR investigators in the geographically dispersed communities where they are.
The AACR has been the organizing principle behind the collective effort to understand cancer and devise preventative, interception, and curative strategies for more than 100 years. Over the course of my 25-year career, the AACR has substantially extended its translational, clinical, and geographic reach. My hope is to maintain the unity of our purpose under the banner of an expanded vision of team science.
Research Interests
The treatment of melanoma, employing BRAF, MEK, and combined BRAF/MEK inhibition in patients with metastatic melanoma; assessing and identifying mechanisms of de novo and acquired resistance to BRAF inhibitor therapy; clinically evaluating and understanding proximate and downstream consequences of next generation MAP kinase inhibitors, novel metabolism, and epigenetic modifiers to overcome therapeutic resistance.
Current Affiliations
Director, clinical research, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, Massachusetts; associate member, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts; professor, medicine, Harvard Medical School; associate dermatologist; and associate physician, medicine and hematology/oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
Previous Positions
Director, COVID-19 Clinical Research, Massachusetts General Hospital (2020-2021); director, Henri and Belinda Termeer Center for Targeted Therapy (2012-2018) and Director of Developmental Therapeutics (2009-2012), Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, Massachusetts; associate professor, medicine (2009-2016), Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; adjunct professor, the Wistar Institute (2006-2009), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; assistant professor, medicine (2004-2009); attending physician, medicine and medical oncology (2002-2009); and instructor, medicine (2002-2004), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Education
MD, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland (1997); BS, neurobiology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (1993).
Postdoctoral Training
Fellow, medical oncology, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (2000-2002), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; resident (1998-2000) and intern (1997-1998), medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
Selected AACR Service, Honors, and Awards
Member, Fellows of the AACR Academy Nominating Committee (2024-present); elected Fellow, Fellows of the AACR Academy (2023); chair (2023-2024), vice chair (2020-2021), and cochair (2012-2013, 2010), Annual Meeting Program Committee; member, AACR Clinical Trials Advisory Council (2023-present); member, AACR Exploratory IND/Phase 0 Clinical Trials Task Force (2021-present); member, COVID-19 and Cancer Task Force (2020-2022); member, Program Committee and Presenter, AACR COVID-19 and Cancer Meeting (2020); member, Board of Directors (2019-2022); member, Annual Meeting Clinical Trials Committee (2018-2020, 2016-2018, 2012-2013); faculty, Clinical Trial Design Part 1: Clinical Trial Design for Targeted Therapies Workshop, “Designing clinical trials to overcome de novo resistance” (2018); editor-in-chief (2016-present) and senior editor (2010-2016), AACR Journal, Clinical Cancer Research; member, External Advisory Board, AACR Project GENIE (2015-present); member, AACR NextGen Grants for Transformative Cancer Research Review Committee (2015); member, Publications Committee (2014-2017); chair, Clinical Trials and Clinical Pharmacology Section, Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee (2013); scientific editor, AACR Journal, Cancer Discovery (2010-2017); chair, Special Conference on Translational Cancer Medicine (2010), cochair, “New Concepts in Organ-Site Research: Melanoma,” Annual Meeting (2012, 2011, 2010, 2007).
Selected Non-AACR Service, Honors, and Awards
Recipient for Melanoma, Giants of Cancer Care, OncLive (2020); member, NCI Board of Scientific Advisors (2018-2023); past president (2018-present), president (2016-2018) and president-elect (2015-2016), Society for Melanoma Research (SMR); chair, MD Anderson Moonshots Program External Advisory Committee (2016-2018); recipient, Michaele Christian Oncology Development Award and Lectureship, NCI/Cancer Therapeutics Evaluation Program (2015); inaugural recipient, Richard Saltonstall Chair in Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital (2014); recipient, Harrison Clinical Research Award, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center (2013); recipient, Peter Fink Memorial Lectureship, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (2013); chair, Developmental Therapeutics Track, Cancer Education Committee, American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting (2012-2014); member, Clinical Trials Awards and Advisory Committee, CRUK (2011-present); chair, Developmental Therapeutics Committee, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) (2011-present); elected member, American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) (2011); recipient, Estella Medrano Memorial Award, Society for Melanoma Research (2010); member, NCI Investigational Drug Steering Committee (2009-present); cochair, Targeted Therapy Symposium Annual Meeting, World Congress on Melanoma (2009, 2007); chair, Scientific Program Committee for the Melanoma Annual Meeting, ASCO (2007).