Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Keith Flaherty, Chairman
Dr. Flaherty is a leading clinician focused on biomarkers to define mechanisms and identify optimal target patient populations. He currently serves as Director of Developmental Therapeutics for the Cancer Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and as Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, and is internationally known for his expertise in clinical and translational research directed against signal transduction pathways in melanoma.
Dr. Flaherty has been at the forefront of clinical research for innovative kinase-targeted cancer drug development: In addition to being principal investigator of numerous first-in-human clinical trials with novel targeted therapies, he is the principal investigator of two national, cooperative group trials. He served as principal investigator for the first-in-human clinical trials of the first prospectively developed selective BRAF inhibitors (RAF-265 and PLX4032, now vemurafenib / Zelboraf). Vemurafenib emerged as the most active single-agent therapy ever evaluated in metastatic melanoma patients, and was approved in 2011 after phase III trials in which Dr. Flaherty served as co-principal investigator.
Dr. James Abbruzzese
Dr. James Abbruzzese, MD is Chief of Medical Oncology and Associate Director for Clinical Research at Duke Cancer Institute. He is a leading expert in the clinical study and treatment of pancreatic cancer and has spent most of his professional career at M.D. Anderson, most recently as the Waun Ki Hong Distinguished Chair in Translational Oncology, chairman of the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, and Associate Vice-Provost for Clinical Research. He currently guides and directs Duke's 13 oncology disease-based clinical research groups and is responsible for the clinical trials operation that encompasses more than 1,000 open trials with an average annual accrual of 6,000 patients. He has co-authored more than 400 research publications and serves as chair of the Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Committee of the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Robert I. Haddad
Dr. Robert I. Haddad, MD, is the Disease Center Leader of the Head and Neck Oncology Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Associate Physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Haddad is a member of the NCCN Head and Neck Cancers Panel, and Thyroid Carcinoma Panel, and is an ad hoc reviewer for many prominent journals, including New England Journal of Medicine, Head and Neck, and Oral Oncology. He has been an author of over 100 original articles, reviews and book chapters on topics related to Head and Neck Cancer. Dr. Haddad's research interests include the role of chemotherapy and radiation in organ preservation in head and neck cancer, novel agents in head and neck cancer, cytoprotection in head and neck cancer.
Dr. Tony Blau
Dr. Blau is Director of the University of Washington Center for Cancer Innovation. He is a Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine/Hematology, Adjunct Professor of Genome Sciences and Co-Director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine. He also co-directs the Stem and Progenitor Cell Biology Program for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/University of Washington Cancer Consortium.
Dr. Blau has served on multiple advisory panels for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and currently chairs the Molecular and Cellular Hematology study section at the NIH. His research interests encompass stem cell biology, gene therapy, and personalized approaches to cancer treatment.