SPEAKERS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
GEORGIA BEASLEY, MD Dr. Georgia Beasley is an assistant professor of surgery in the division of Surgical Oncology at Duke University. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Duke University while also being selected a two- me Atlan c Coast Conference Player of the Year and Two-Time All-American for the Duke University varsity women’s basketball team. A er playing 3 years in the women’s NBA, she returned to medical school. She obtained her MD (2008) and Masters of Health Science in clinical research (2010) from Duke University School of Medicine. She then completed general surgical residency at Duke University which she completed in 2015, during which me she was awarded a traineeship under a long-standing Surgical Oncology T32 grant and played a significant role in the preclinical development, trial design, trial accrual, and analysis for mul ple Phase I and II clinical trials developing novel therapeu cs in melanoma. She recently completed a fellowship in complex surgical oncology at the Ohio State University. She returned to Duke in 2019 as a faculty member and is currently the co-director of the Duke Melanoma Program. She has first authored over 60 publica ons mostly centered on the treatment of melanoma. She is principal inves gator of several therapeu c clinical trials in melanoma along with transla onal projects. Her main clinical and research interests include immunologic aspects of melanoma including oncoly c viral therapy. Most recently she has received the Society of Surgical Oncology’s Young Inves gator Award to study tumor draining lymph nodes in melanoma and was recently named to Duke Medical School’s Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honor society.
STEPHANIE GOFF, MD: Dr. Stephanie Goff is a surgeon on the senior staff of the Surgery Branch of the Na onal Cancer Ins tute at the NIH. Her research interests include adop ve cell therapy for the treatment of solid tumors, building on the backbone of success in pa ents with metasta c melanoma to inves gate the strategy in pa ents with metasta c breast cancer. Her publica ons range from analysis of early trials of checkpoint blockade to gene c modifica ons of T-cell receptors. She was a featured physician in the Discovery Channel film, “First in Human”, documen ng life at the NIH’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD.
She is an honors graduate of the Georgia Ins tute of Technology (Mechanical Engineering) and obtained her MD at the University of South Florida in Tampa. A er training in tumor immunology under Dr. Steven Rosenberg, Dr. Goff completed her general surgery residency at Columbia University followed by a surgical oncology fellowship at the combined Dana-Farber Cancer Ins tute/Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Massachuse s General Hospital program.
KENNETH GROSSMAN, MD, PHD Dr. Kenneth Grossmann, MD, PhD, is an associate professor in the Division of Oncology for the Department of Medicine and a Huntsman Cancer Ins tute inves gator. He also works at intermountain healthcare, and is building a collabora ve program between these two ins tu ons which is designed to encompass melanoma care for the state of Utah.
CureMelanoma.org 1 of 5 Addi onally, he is the chair of the SWOG melanoma commi ee and oversees the por olio of melanoma and cutaneous cancers research within that program.
Grossmann completed undergraduate studies in biology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. He earned his PhD and MD degrees from the Department of Molecular and Medical Gene cs at Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU) in Portland. He completed a combined fellowship in medical oncology at OHSU and the University of Utah, and also par cipated in a melanoma and cutaneous oncology rota on at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has worked in the Moffit Cancer Center’s cutaneous oncology program, and con nues collabora ons with mul ple centers around the country.
RIZWAN HAQ, MD, PHD: Dr. Rizwan Haq is a graduate of the University of Toronto, where he completed his B.Sc. (Hon), and MD/PhD. His PhD was at the Ontario Cancer Ins tute/Princess Margaret Hospital in the laboratory of Dr Brent Zanke. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Bal more, followed by medical oncology training at Dana-Farber Cancer Ins tute and Massachuse s General Hospital. He joined the laboratory of Dr David E. Fisher, where he conducted transla onal work in the melanoma; and was an a ending oncologist at Massachuse s General Hospital.
He was recruited back to Dana-Farber Cancer Ins tute in 2014. His research focuses on resistance to melanoma therapies, including targeted agents and immunotherapies. He has been a contribu ng author of numerous high profile publica ons, including those published in Cancer Cell, Nature, Proceedings of the Na onal Academy of Sciences USA. At Dana-Farber Cancer Ins tute, Dr. Haq devotes part of his me to developing the next genera on of melanoma therapeu cs and transla ng them to innova ve inves gator-ini ated clinical trials. His clinical prac ce is dedicated to pa ents with melanoma.
MICHAEL KAPLAN Michael Kaplan joined the Melanoma Research Alliance as President & CEO in 2016. Building on more than 25 years of execu ve non-profit and public health leadership experience, Mr. Kaplan has a proven record as a passionate supporter of health research and policy. Mr. Kaplan is responsible for strategic direc on, overall management and raising capital to achieve MRA’s mission of ending suffering and death due to melanoma and to foster collabora on with all stakeholders to accelerate powerful research, advance cures, and prevent more melanomas.
Mr. Kaplan has headed nonprofits and pa ent advocacy groups across the United States and interna onally. He has managed interna onal and domes c grant-making por olios focused on disease surveillance, preven on and treatment. Prior to joining MRA, he served as the President and CEO of
CureMelanoma.org 2 of 5 Washington, DC-based AIDS United. Addi onal leadership posi ons have included Execu ve Director of Cascade AIDS Project in Portland, Ore., Vice President at the Academy for Educa onal Development, and Deputy Director roles at both the Futures Group Interna onal and the Na onal Youth Advocacy Coali on in Washington, DC. He has served on the boards of several organiza ons focusing on everything from health issues to grant-making, and behavior health to healthy youth development.
JASON LUKE, MD: Jason J. Luke, M.D., F.A.C.P. is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pi sburgh Medical Center and Hillman Cancer Center where he is the Director of the Cancer Immunotherapeu cs Center. Dr. Luke specializes in the management of pa ents with melanoma and early phase drug development (par cularly novel immunotherapeu cs and biomarkers of immunotherapy ac vity). Dr. Luke has been a lead na onal inves gator on clinical trials of immunotherapy agents including but not limited to an -PD1/L1, CTLA4, LAG3, TIM3, GITR, OX40, CD137, CD40, inhibitors of indolamine-dioxygenase (IDO), adenosine A2a receptor and arginase as well as agonists of STING and oncoly c virus. Dr. Luke’s major research transla onal research is focused on using large scale informa cs to advance the field of cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Luke received his M.D. from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in Chicago. He then pursued internship and residency at the Boston University Medical Center followed by medicine and medical oncology fellowships at Weill Cornell Medical College and Memorial Sloan-Ke ering Cancer Center in New York City. Following fellowship, Dr. Luke was a tenure-track, Type 1 Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School as well as Staff Physician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Ins tute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Therea er Dr. Luke was an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago. Dr. Luke is ac vely involved in several professional socie es including the Society for Melanoma Research, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, American Associa on for Cancer Research and the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Dr. Luke has served as the chair of the educa on commi ee and as a member of the scien fic commi ee for the melanoma track of the ASCO annual mee ng. Dr. Luke has received several awards for research and clinical care including the Melanoma Research Founda on Humanitarian Award, Crain’s 40 under 40, Department of Defense Career Development Award, Paul Calabresi Career Development in Clinical Oncology Award (K12), ASCO Merit Award as well as Young Inves gator Awards from the Melanoma Research Alliance, the Cancer Research Founda on and the Conquer Cancer Founda on of ASCO. Dr. Luke’s research has been supported by ASCO, the Na onal Comprehensive Cancer Network and the Na onal Cancer Ins tute.
JAMES MOON, MD: Dr. James Moon is the John Gideon Searle Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceu cal Sciences and Biomedical Engineering at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is also a member of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. His transla onal research program aims to improve vaccines and immunotherapies. He has received numerous awards, including 2017 Emerald
CureMelanoma.org 3 of 5 Founda on Dis nguished Inves gator Award, 2016 NSF CAREER Award, and 2016 DOD Career Development Award. Dr. Moon received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. from Rice University, and he completed his postdoctoral training at MIT.
MARLANA ORLOFF, MD Dr. Marlana Orloff is an assistant professor of medicine and medical oncologist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital – Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA. Her clinical and research focus is on primary and advanced melanomas. Though she sees pa ents with cutaneous melanoma, her main interest is in rare melanomas including uveal, conjunc val, and mucosal melanoma. Her research is centered on inves ga ng the epidemiology of uveal melanoma and discovery of novel therapies for primary and advanced uveal, conjunc val, mucosal and cutaneous melanoma. She works very closely with the team at Wills Eye Hospital to manage hundreds of pa ents with primary and advanced ocular melanomas. In addi on, she currently oversees the inpa ent metasta c uveal melanoma service at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital that admits and treats pa ents with metasta c uveal melanoma from all over the country. Along with medical oncologist Dr. Takami Sato, a dedicated team of interven onal radiologists, and numerous other essen al personnel the program now performs close to 700 liver directed procedures for this disease annually. She is principal and co-inves gator on a number of clinical trials enrolling pa ents with primary and advanced melanomas of all types.
Her current research is funded by Melanoma Research Alliance, industry support, and the generous philanthropic support of pa ents and their families.
ELIZABETH ‘LIZ’ PATTON, PHD Liz Pa on is a Professor and MRC Programme Leader Scien st at the MRC Human Gene cs Unit, University of Edinburgh, UK. Professor Pa on received a BSc Honours degree from King’s College at Dalhousie University, and a PhD from the University of Toronto, working with Mike Tyers to discover how E3 ubiqui n ligases control cell division. Following this, Liz received a Human Fron er Science Programme Postdoctoral Fellowship to work with Len Zon at Harvard Medical School, where she developed a zebrafish model for melanoma now used worldwide in melanoma research. Her lab uses chemical gene c approaches in zebrafish to discover new drug targets and drug-leads in melanoma biology . Professor Pa on is an Editor at Disease Models and Mechanisms (Company of Biologists) and Pigment Cell and Melanoma Research (Wiley). Professor Pa on was the founding President of the Zebrafish Disease Models Society (2013-2015) and currently serves as a Treasurer and Board member, and is an elected member of the Young Academy of Scotland at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Professor Pa on’s research is funded by the Medical Research Council and the European Research Council, and she has been funded by a L’Oréal Paris USA–MRA Team Science Award for Women in Scien fic Research.
CureMelanoma.org 4 of 5 ANTONI RIBAS, MD, PHD Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD is Professor of Medicine, Professor of Surgery, and Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Director of the Tumor Immunology Program at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) and the Chair of the Melanoma Commi ee at SWOG. Trained at the University of Barcelona, with postdoctoral research and clinical fellowships at UCLA. Dr Ribas is a physician-scien st who conducts laboratory and clinical research in malignant melanoma, focusing on gene engineered adop ve cell transfer (ACT) therapies, an -CTLA4 an bodies, an -PD-1 an bodies, and BRAF and MEK inhibitors.
His NCI, State of California and private founda on-supported research laboratory develops models of disease to test new therapeu c op ons and studies mechanism of ac on of treatments in pa ents. He has been instrumental in the clinical development of several agents approved by the FDA, including pembrolizumab (Keytruda), vemurafenib (Zelboraf), cobime nib (Cotellic), dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and trame nib (Mekinist). He is the recipient of the AACR Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award, the AACR Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology and a Na onal Cancer Ins tute (NCI) Outstanding Inves gator Award, and is the President-elect of the American Associa on for Cancer Research (AACR).
LIZ SZABO Liz Szabo, a senior correspondent and enterprise reporter who focuses on the quality of pa ent care, has covered medicine for two decades. Her stories about cancer and overtreatment for KHN have won numerous awards, including first place from the Na onal Headliner Awards. She also was a finalist for the Gerald Loeb and NIHCM awards. Before coming to KHN, Szabo covered medicine for USA TODAY for nearly 13 years. Her coverage of mental health and the link between poor health and substandard housing helped her earn the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Repor ng in 2016. Her inves ga on of dangerous doctors, wri en while working at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va. in 2002, won two Na onal Press Club awards and led Virginia lawmakers to toughen state laws for disciplining physicians.
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