NFCR at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 28, 2019
CONTACT:
National Foundation for Cancer Research
Bradley Gillenwater, Senior Director for Global Programs & Communications
E-mail: bgillenwater@nfcr.org / Phone: 301-961-9161
Profile Includes Distinguished Public Service Award for Daniel Von Hoff
ROCKVILLE, MD – The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) will be well represented at the 110th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), which kicks off tomorrow in Atlanta and runs through April 3rd. One of the most widely anticipated regular gatherings of cancer scientists in the world, over 20,000 attendees from various oncology research, government and industry organizations around the world are expected to participate, including multiple NFCR scientists.
Prominently included is Daniel Von Hoff, M.D., an NFCR fellow whose science our organization has funded continuously since 1984, who is being honored with the 2019 AACR Distinguished Public Service Award. The prize recognizes his extraordinary clinical research career, which includes leading or participating in over 350 first-in-human investigational agent studies, and unparalleled role in training thousands of designers and practitioners of cancer drug trials. A drug development luminary with the Translational Genomics Research Institute, TGen, Dr. Von Hoff delivers a Monday morning distinguished lecture on the art and science of training.
Two other current NFCR fellows and one member of our scientific advisory board (SAB) will also be speaking at AACR about new studies or offering analysis and perspective on various subjects pertaining to cancer research. Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital’s Rakesh Jain, Ph.D., will twice be featured. He is an educational session speaker on Saturday morning, focusing on the topic of improving cancer immunotherapy by normalizing blood vessels. Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Jain chairs and presents at a major symposium on vascular regulation of antitumor immunity.
Lung cancer expert Alice Shaw, M.D., Ph.D., too of both Harvard and Mass General, on Sunday morning presents an expert session on lung cancer clinical trials. Boston Children’s Hospital’s Frederick Alt, Ph.D., an NFCR SAB member, presents on Wednesday morning at a major symposium on genetic instability about rearrangements in the immune system.
In addition to these speaking roles, poster, mentoring and third-party presentations on research co-authored by NFCR-affiliated scientists will run throughout the AACR annual meeting. No fewer than 43 such sessions among at least 15 of NFCR’s current and recent researchers and SAB members will be held. Those scientists are Frederick Alt, Ph.D., Robert Bast, M.D., Yung-Chi Cheng, Ph.D., Laurence Cooper, M.D., Ph.D., Paul Fisher, Ph.D., Susan Horwitz, Ph.D., Laurence Hurley, Ph.D., Rakesh Jain, Ph.D., Brian Leyland-Jones, Ph.D., Wayne Marasco, M.D., Ph.D., Alice Shaw, M.D., Ph.D., Michael Sporn, M.D., Daniel Von Hoff, M.D., Danny Welch, Ph.D., and Wei Zhang, Ph.D.
Additionally, NFCR will for the second year in a row be partnering at the six-day event with Envigo, one of the chemical, medical and drug development industries’ premier contract research service providers. Visitors to the company’s booth will have the opportunity to play an exciting and fun game of chance. Dollar value “wins” associated with the activity will be aggregated and the total value donated to our organization.
We join the global cancer science community, and our colleagues in the vast oncology funding, patient, caregiver and advocacy fields, in calling attention to the groundbreaking, insightful and promising work being profiled by AACR in the coming few days. Such efforts continue to be about the NFCR motto and call to action: Research for a Cure.
About the National Foundation for Cancer Research
The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides scientists in the lab the funding they need to make and apply game-changing discoveries in cancer treatments, detection, prevention and, ultimately, a cure. It has distinguished itself in the cancer sector by emphasizing long-term, transformative research often overlooked by other major funding sources. With the help of more than 5.3 million individual donors over the last 46 years, NFCR has delivered more than $380 million in funding to public education and cancer research leading to several important, life-saving discoveries. For more information, visit http://www.nfcr.org.
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