AROUND TOWN
The AACR has named Mary Lee Watts as director of government relations. She will be based in Washington, DC. Ms. Watts comes to the Philadelphia-based association from the American Society for Nutrition where she served as the director for science and public affairs.
Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD, and Carlos Arteaga, MD, of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tenn., have been selected to serve on the Scientific Advisory Council, a newly developed research program at Susan G. Komen for the Cure. SAC members will provide scientific peer review for the breast cancer grants and programs that Komen funds. Members will serve renewable two-year terms. Dr. Pietenpol is director of the cancer center. Dr. Arteaga is leader of the Vanderbilt-Ingram breast cancer program and a professor of medicine and cancer biology.
Cheryl Rock, PhD, RD, professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego, will lead a four-year clinical trial to show the effects of weight loss and increased physical activity on quality of life, and on co-existing medical conditions, in overweight breast cancer survivors. UCSD’s medical school received a $5.3 million NCI grant for this trial, which will be called the ENERGY (Exercise and Nutrition to Enhance Recovery and Good Health for You) study.
ASTRO has named its 2010 class of fellows: Mitchell S. Anscher, MD, Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond; Robert L. Foote, MD, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.; Michael T. Gillin, PhD, Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; Kathryn M. Greven, MD, Wake Forest University Cancer Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.; Ismail Kazem, MD, James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa, Fla; Lawrence B. Marks, MD, University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill; Lori J. Pierce, MD (at left), University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; Marcus E. Randall, MD, University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington; Howard M. Sandler, MD, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, Los Angeles; James B. Smathers, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles; and Terry J. Wall, MD, JD, St. Luke's Cancer Institute in Kansas City, Mo. They will receive their fellow designation at the ASTRO 2010 meeting in San Diego. The New York-based advocacy group CancerCare has elected Susan S. Smirnoff as president of its national board of trustees. Ms. Smirnoff will serve a four-year term. She is executive vice president and global strategic head, health and wellness, at the Ruder Finn publicrelations firm.
Two investigators at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have received grants from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. Brian Till, MD, a research associate in the clinical research division, was awarded a three-year, $450,000 Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award to help fund his work on a new immunotherapy-based treatment for lymphoma. Colleen Delaney, MD, who leads the center’s research and clinical program in cord blood stem cell transplantation, received a two-year, $300,000 continuation grant from Damon Runyon. Dr. Delaney is an assistant member of the clinical research division.
INTERNATIONAL
The following physicians have been awarded 2010 ASCO International Development and Education Awards: Suthinee Ithimakin, MD, from the Siriaj Hospital, Mahidol University in Bangkok; Haresh Kunhiparambath, MBBS, MD, DNB, from All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi; Luiz H. de Lima Araújo, MD, from the Brazilian National Cancer Institute; Ganesh Dangal, MD, from the Kathmandu Model Hospital in Nepal; Senem Demirci, MD, from Ege University in Izmir, Turkey; Ilya Pokataev, MD from the Russian Cancer Research Center in Moscow; and Chanida Vinayanuwattikun, MD, form Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
