Alice T. Shaw, MD, PhD
Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD
Alice T. Shaw, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, and Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, have been named co-leaders of the Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C)-American Cancer Society (ACS) Lung Cancer Dream Team, joining co-leader Jedd Wolchok, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Drs. Shaw and Jänne replace Jeffrey Engelman, MD, PhD, who left academic medicine for a position in industry. Dr. Wolchok is an original co-leader of the team, which was launched in 2015. Investigators from six other institutions—Yale Cancer Center; Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins; The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; the University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center; Cleveland Clinic; and the University of California Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center—are also serving on the team.
“We are pleased to have such a distinguished group of renowned researchers heading this Dream Team,” said
Phillip A. Sharp, PhD, Chairperson of the SU2C Scientific Advisory Committee, Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and its Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. “We are focusing a tremendous amount of talent on a very tough problem.”
“Lung cancer is the number one cancer killer in the United States among both men and women,” said Otis W. Brawley, MD, ACS Chief Medical and Scientific Officer. “New treatment approaches are urgently needed.”
The Dream Team is investigating ways to combine targeted therapies and immunotherapies in the treatment of patients with lung cancer in which the KRAS gene is mutated.
SU2C and ACS joined forces to make this team one of the largest launched by SU2C, with a total budget up to $20 million. SU2C and ACS are each providing up to $10 million over the 3-year life of the grant. Bristol-Myers Squibb is providing funding in the amount of $5 million to SU2C to support the SU2C-ACS Lung Cancer Dream Team.
More About Co-Leaders
Dr. Shaw is Director of the Center for Thoracic Cancers at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Jänne is Director of the Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology and Scientific Director of the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science, both at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Wolchok is the Lloyd J. Old/Virginia and Daniel K. Ludwig Chair in Clinical Investigation; Chief of Melanoma and Immunotherapeutics Service; Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy; and Associate Director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. ■
