ASH Clinical News September 2015 | Page 20

UP FRONT The Society Pages Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the first director of the Ludwig Cancer Center there. Also at the SWCRF Robert A. Weinberg, Symposium, Siddhartha PhD Mukherjee, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the Irving Cancer Research Center at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center, received the Distinguished Service Award for generating widespread public interest in cancer research through his book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, which inspired the recent PBS documentary “Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies.” Runyon Fellows are: • Lacy J. Barton, PhD, New York University School of Medicine Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, New York City, New York • Danfeng Cai, PhD, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland • Gina V. Caldas, PhD, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts • Qi Hu, PhD, University of California, San Francisco, California American Cancer Society Presents 2015 Leadership in Oncology Social Work Award Tara Schapmire, PhD, MSSW, assistant professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and an affiliated faculty member at Kent School of Social Work, has received the Association of Oncology Social Work/American Cancer Society Leadership in Oncology Social Work Award for 2015. Dr. Schapmire was recognized for her contributions to the field of oncology social work and leadership through administration, education, clinical practice, and research. Dr. Schapmire is also co-investigator for a five-year, $1.5-million National Cancer Institute grant to create and evaluate an interdisciplinary oncology palliative care curriculum, as well as co-investigator of the $7.5-million Kentucky LEADS Collaborative, a project dedicated to reducing the burden of lung cancer in Kentucky through community-based interventions to educate providers, care for survivors, and promote prevention through early lung cancer detection efforts. • Allison N. Lau, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts • June-Yong Lee, PhD, New York University School of Medicine Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, New York City, New York • Kathrin Leppek, PhD, Stanford University, Stanford, California • Tera C. Levin, PhD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington • Lyndsay M. Murrow, PhD, University of California, San Francisco, California • Vu Quang Nguyen, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Campus, Ashburn, Virginia Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Grants Fellowship Awards to 16 Young Scientists The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has named 16 young scientists as its Spring Fellows. The recipients of these four-year awards will receive grants totaling more than $3.3 million to support their basic and translational cancer research, ranging from studying how cells in the tumor microenvironment impact response to anti-cancer therapy to understanding how immune cells abnormally proliferate. The 2015 Damon 18 ASH Clinical News to the evaluation and pricing of drugs in the United States. ICER will produce public reports on new drugs that have the potential to significantly change patient care and health system budgets. Each report will include a full analysis of a drug’s comparative effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and potential budget impact. With the new funding, ICER will double its staff and produce more public reports suggesting benchmark prices for up to 20 drugs over the next two years. “We need prices that make sense,” said ICER President Steven Pearson, MD. “Right now, it’s often a black box: we don’t know if we are getting good value with new drugs at these higher prices. With the Laura and John Arnold Foundation’s support, ICER hopes to create a path toward a future in which prices better mirror how much better a new drug actually is in improving patients’ lives.” Source: Institute for Clinical and Economic Review press release --• Alistair B. Russell, PhD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington • Joseph D. Schonhoft, PhD, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California • Justin L. Sparks, PhD, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts Source: University of Louisville School of Medicine news release --- —STEVEN PEARSON, MD • Bryan C. King, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, New York Source: Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation press release --- “Right now, it’s often a black box: we don’t know if we are getting good value with new drugs at these higher prices.” • Neil T. Umbreit, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts • Swathi Yadlapalli, PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Source: Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation press release --- ICER Receives $5.2 Million Award to Launch New Drug Assessment Program The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), a nonprofit health-care research organization, has received a $5.2-million grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to launch a program to create a new approach Mayo Clinic Receives $11 Million from NCI to Study Cancer Survivorship Mayo Clinic has received a five-year, $11-million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study survivorship in patients with nonHodgkin lymphoma (NHL). The Lymphoma Epidemiology of Outcomes Cohort Study will enroll 12,000 patients with NHL. The study will follow these patients for long-term prognosis and survivorship. “With an increasing number of Americans living with NHL, we need to find new and better ways to improve the length and quality of their lives,” said James Cerhan, MD, PhD, the study’s principal investigator and an epidemiologist at Mayo Clinic, in a press release. The grant involves collaboration among multiple institutions, including lymphoma experts from Mayo Clinic, the University of Iowa, Emory University/Grady Health System, MD Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Wisconsin, Cornell University, and the University of Miami Health System/Jackson Memorial Hospital. ● Source: Mayo Clinic press release September 2015