June 3, 2020 - Narratives Special Issue (View All Issues)
The ASCO Post and Narratives in Oncology Through the Years
THE ASCO POST is pleased to acknowledge its 10th anniversary. Our first issue was launched in June 2010 at the ASCO Annual Meeting. Beginning in 2012, The ASCO Post introduced Narratives in Oncology, a special commemorative issue profiling leaders in the oncology community.
To nominate an...
From the United States to Germany and Back Again to Become ASCO President in 2021–2022
ASCO President-Elect Everett E. Vokes, MD, FASCO, is the John E. Ultmann Professor, Chair of the Department of Medicine, and Physician-in-Chief of University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences. After a journey from the United States to Germany and back again, Dr. Vokes arrived at the...
ASCO’s President Aims to Ensure Equitable Cancer Care for Every Patient
The desire to pursue a career in medicine took root when Lori J. Pierce, MD, FASTRO, FASCO, was a young child visiting family in segregated Ahoskie, North Carolina. She witnessed firsthand the impact the town’s lone African American family physician had on the community.
When it came time to...
An Early Interest in Cancer Immunology Inspires a Life’s Work in Melanoma
F. Stephen Hodi, MD, Director of the Melanoma Center and the Center for Immuno-Oncology at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, was born in Framingham and grew up in the town of Acton, a western suburb of Boston. “My dad was an engineer, and I was influenced by puzzle-solving and using...
A Lung Cancer Specialist’s Winding Journey From Venezuela to Wisconsin
Lung cancer specialist Narjust Duma, MD, was born and reared in Mérida, Venezuela, a city nestled on a plateau in the Venezuelan Andes. “I’m the daughter of two surgeons. After my parents divorced, I lived with my mother and spent a lot of time at the hospital where she worked. When she was in...
International Medical and Radiation Oncologist Balances Cancer Research and Clinical Practice
The Revolutions of 1989 that resulted in the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond began in Poland. Perhaps if not for that social upheaval, the career of internationally renowned oncologist Jacek Jassem, MD, PhD, would have taken a very different path. Dr. Jassem had fled...
A Nobel Laureate’s Road to Research Is Not Without Challenges
The 2019 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was jointly awarded to three researchers. Their discoveries paved the way for promising new strategies to treat anemia, cancer, and many other diseases. One of the three Nobel Laureates is William G. Kaelin, Jr, MD, who continues his research at his...
Love of Science and a Family Tragedy Set the Course for This Breast Cancer Researcher
When oncology luminary Joyce A. O’Shaughnessy, MD, was in her early teens, her youngest sister, Teri, developed acute lymphocytic leukemia at age 5. Dr. O’Shaughnessy, the oldest of four girls, recalled that her sister’s struggle with the disease had a profound effect on her worldview.
“Teri...
Love of Science, Passion for Research, and Belief in the Power of the Immune System
Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, FASCO, knew from the start of his medical career that if treatments for cancer were to become curative, research in new therapies would have to move away from the mainstay one-size-fits-all approach of systemic chemotherapy to an innovative, personalized strategy...
Expert in Clinical Trial Methodology Makes His Mark in Genitourinary Cancer
In 2019, at the ASCO Annual Meeting, Ian Tannock, MD, PhD, DSc, FASCO, was honored with the Allen S. Lichter Visionary Award for his contributions to the fields of genitourinary and breast cancers as well as his efforts to optimize clinical trial design. The title of his lecture was “Clinical...
Internationally Regarded Cancer Immunologist Did Not Stray Far From Home
Internationally recognized immune-oncology melanoma expert Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, FASCO, was born and reared in Staten Island, not far from where he would shape his noted career at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York, New York. “I went to Princeton University and, during...
Renowned Researcher and Surgeon Helps to Transform Treatment of Breast Cancer
Although ‘paradigm shifts’ are frequently referenced in oncology, these are really few and far between. They occur when new data either partially invalidate previously accepted theory or are at complete odds with the existing paradigm. Moving away from the Halsted radical mastectomy, a standard...
Tribute to Bernard Fisher, MD
Bernard Fisher, MD, who died on October 16, 2019, at the age of 101, is recognized today for his groundbreaking research in breast cancer, which ultimately ended the standard practice of performing the Halsted radical mastectomy, a treatment that had been in place for more than 75 years. His...
Mourned and Missed
The respected members of the oncology community who are listed below passed away in 2019–2020. The ASCO Post remembers them, their lives, and their contributions to cancer research and treatment.
Clara D. Bloomfield, MD, FASCO
The acute myeloid leukemia (AML) community lost one of its shining...
