Lee Krug, MD, Chair

Lee M. Krug, MD, is an Associate Attending Physician in the Division of Thoracic Oncology, Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, New York where he completed a fellowship and chief fellowship in medical oncology. Dr. Krug is the Director of the Mesothelioma Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Krug has investigated multimodality approaches for patients with early stage malignant pleural mesothelioma. He led a multicenter U.S. trial of induction chemotherapy before extrapleural pneumonectomy, and he has a current study testing the feasibility of chemotherapy followed by pleural radiation. Dr. Krug also has a strong interest in novel therapeutics for patients with more advanced disease. He conducted a phase I trial with a WT-1 peptide vaccine, and he was awarded a grant from the Department of Defense to conduct a randomized phase II trial with this vaccine. He is also the principal investigator of an international, phase III trial of a histone deacetylase inhibitor, vorinostat. Dr. Krug led the committee for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) that established treatment guidelines for mesothelioma. He is the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Meso Foundation and also serves on the Board of Directors.                                                                                                       

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
1275 York Ave.
New York, NY 10065

Steven Albelda, MD

Dr. Albelda is the William Maul Measey Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Associate Director of the Pulmonary Division, Director of Lung Research, and Co-Director of the Thoracic Oncology Laboratories. Dr. Albelda is recognized as one of the leading researchers in gene therapy for mesothelioma.

University of Pennsylvania Medical Center
Abramson Research Building, Room 1016B
3615 Civic Center Blvd.
Philadelphia, PA 19104-4318

Michele Carbone, MD

Michele Carbone, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology at the University of Hawaii Medical School, and the Interim Director of the Cancer Research Center of the University of Hawaii. He was born in Rome, Italy. He received his MD and Ph.D. from the Medical School of Rome “La Sapienza”.  He is board certified in Anatomic Pathology in both, Italy and US.  He came to the US in 1986 as a recipient of a Fogarty Fellow Award and worked in the Viral Pathogenesis section at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda MD until 1994.  He moved to the University of Chicago in 1994 and in 1997 moved to the Cancer Center of the Loyola University of Chicago where he was a Professor of Pathology and the Director of Thoracic Oncology.  In June of 2006 he left Loyola to join the University of Hawaii. Dr. Carbone has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers: most of them deal with the pathogenesis of mesothelioma. 

Dr. Carbone’s research team receives over 50% of the total US Federal grant funding for research on asbestos and mesothelioma. Dr. Carbone has the honorary title of Knight of Italy that he received in 2003 for his achievements in Science and Medicine.

Cancer Research Center of Hawaii
Department of Pathology John A. Burns School of Medicine
651 Ilalo St, BSB 231-H
University of Hawaii
Honolulu HI 96813                                                                                                     

Marc De Perrot, MD

Dr. Marc de Perrot is an attending Thoracic Surgeon at the Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network since January 2005 and leads the Toronto Mesothelioma Research Program. Dr. de Perrot has an active clinical and surgical practice as well as being a Principal investigator in the Latner Thoracic Surgery Research Laboratory. Dr. de Perrot's current research interests are centered on malignant pleural mesothelioma and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension.

University of Toronto
200 Elizabeth Street, 9N-961
Toronto, ON M5G 2C4
Canada

Petr F. Hausner, MD, PhD

Dr. Hausner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Hausner’s major clinical interests center on the management of patients with solid cancers in particular mesothelioma and other thoracic malignancies including lung cancer as well as melanoma and other skin cancers including Kaposi sarcoma. To advance the management of these cancers and offer patients with these cancers optimal care, he performs clinical trials for these diseases. 

His laboratory research is centered on the cellular and tissue level of cancer growth. He studies gap junctional intercellular communications and their function in drug resistance.  Phenotypic changes related to the epithelial mesothelial transition are studied in melanoma and mesothelioma. He also studies milky spots of the pleural and peritoneal cavities to better understand the pathogenesis and spread of mesothelioma. Another focus is tumor stem cells as the ultimate object of cancer therapy.

University of Maryland School of Medicine
22 S. Greene Street, Suite S9D04
Baltimore, Maryland 21201

Hedy Lee Kindler, MD

Dr. Kindler is a medical oncologist at the University of Chicago. She is also the Chair of the Mesothelioma Program of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, a national clinical trials research group. Her research is focused on the evaluation of novel drugs for the treatment of mesothelioma, including angiogenesis inhibitors and epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors.

University of Chicago Medical Center
Section of Hematology/Oncology
5841 S. Maryland Avenue, MC 2115
Chicago, IL 60637

Robert A. Kratzke, MD

Dr. Kratzke is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School in the Section of Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation.  In 2004, Dr. Kratzke was established as the first holder of the John Skoglund Chair in Lung Cancer Studies at the University of Minnesota. 

Dr. Kratzke’s research has centered around molecular abnormalities in lung cancer and mesothelioma, focusing primarily on cell cycle regulator genes and their loss of function in cancer.  He has studied gene replacement therapy for mesothelioma using murine models resulting in curative treatment in the animal model.  Dr. Kratzke has been an invited speaker on mesothelioma at International Mesothelioma Interest Group biennial meetings, as well as the biennial meetings of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

University of Minnesota Medical School
MMC 480, 420 Delaware St, SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Edward Levine, MD

Edward Levine is Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Surgical Oncology Service. He is 1 of 6 faculty members of the Surgical Oncology Service. He received his medical degree at the Chicago Medical School in 1985. His residency in general surgery was as the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. He subsequently completed a surgical oncology fellowship at the University of Illinois 1990-1992. After his surgical training, Dr. Levine joined the faculty at Louisiana State University in New Orleans where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1997. He joined the Wake Forest University faculty in August 1998 and was promoted to Professor in 2002. He has published over 175 scientific articles and book chapters.

Dr. Levine's clinical interests are related to general surgical oncology with a focus on mesothelioma, melanoma, sarcoma, breast and gastrointestinal malignancy. He is director of the Surgical Oncology Clinics, the multimodality breast clinic and the surgical oncology Conference (“Tumor Board”) for the Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Levine is a member of the Internal Advisory Board of the Wake Forest University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Levine is the principal investigator for approximately 25 current clinical/translational protocols and is committed to clinical/translational research. These involve the National Surgical Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) and the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) for which he is the institutional principal investigator. He is also the leader of the Wake Forest University program of Cytoreductive Surgery and Intraperitoneal Hyperthermic Chemotherapy for Peritoneal Carcinomatosis, which is the second largest such program in the western hemisphere. He is also the recipient of grants from the National Cancer Institute, Industry, and Cancer Center funding translational research involving the genomic analysis of solid tumors.

Steven E. Mutsaers, MD, PhD

Dr. Mutsaers is a Senior Scientist and Research Group Leader at the Lung Institute of Western Australia and University of Western Australia and Laboratory Head in the Dept of Anatomical Pathology, PathWest Laboratory Medicine WA. Dr. Mutsaers has an international reputation in mesothelial cell biology and mesothelioma having worked in the field for over 20 years, and is the Secretary of the International Mesothelioma Interest Group. He is on the committee of several scientific societies and is an international advisor on the International Pleural Newsletter. He receives regular invitations to chair sessions and present his work at national and international scientific meetings and has collaborations in leading laboratories around the world.

PathWest Laboratory Medicine WA                 
Ground Floor J Block, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital  
NEDLANDS WA 6009      
AUSTRALIA

University of Western Australia
4th Floor G Block
Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital
Hospital Avenue
NEDLANDS WA 6009
AUSTRALIA

Anna Nowak, MD

Prof Anna Nowak is a Medical Oncologist and member of the Perth Mesothelioma Centre and National Research Centre for Asbestos Related Diseases (NCARD) who has participated actively in mesothelioma research over the past 10 years, and has received international recognition in this area. She works closely with other researchers in this field at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and UWA. Prof Nowak has been active in pre-clinical research in this disease.

Her laboratory work in mesothelioma includes a PhD thesis on combination chemo-immunotherapy in a murine model; this work was awarded at local, national, and international level, winning the International Mesothelioma Interest Group New Investigator Award in 2002. She returned to UWA in 2005 to pursue laboratory work and clinical translational work in mesothelioma after a postdoctoral fellowship working in clinical trials research. She has given numerous oral presentations and published abstracts of her work at national and international meetings.

Her clinical research on unidimensional measurement of response in mesothelioma culminated in the development of the Modified RECIST Criteria for tumour response which have been widely accepted for use in clinical trials in this disease. She has been an invited speaker internationally on tumour measurement and clinical trials in mesothelioma. She also performed the first published validation of the use of a quality of life tool in clinical trials in mesothelioma. More recently, she has continued to investigate the role of PET scanning in prognostication and monitoring of treatment response in mesothelioma, and is the principal investigator of an investigator-initiated phase II clinical trial of sunitinib as second line therapy in malignant mesothelioma. Her clinical research work outside of mesothelioma includes active participation in clinical trials, psycho-oncology, and translational research in high grade glioma.

Kenneth Rozenzweig, MD

Dr. Rosenzweig is Associate Member of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and in New York, New York. His clinical expertise is in treating cancers of the chest including mesothelioma, non-small cell lung cancer, small cell lung cancer, and thymoma. Dr. Rosenzweig’s research involves adapting the latest technology to allow for safer, more aggressive radiation therapy for lung cancer, such as intensity modulated radiation therapy. He has been a principle investigator on multiple trials evaluating the use of radiation therapy for mesothelioma and lung cancer.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
1275 York Avenue
New York, NY 10065

Jeremy Steele, MD, MRCP

Jeremy is Co-Director of Bart’s Mesothelioma Research. He is a Consultant in Medical Oncology at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, the Royal London Hospital and the London Chest Hospital. He qualified in medicine at St George’s Hospital, London in 1989. After training in general medicine and intensive care, he moved to the Royal Marsden Hospital where he treated his first mesothelioma patient.

At the Institute of Cancer Research he undertook doctoral research into paediatric leukaemia and brain tumours. Jeremy moved to Bart’s in 1997 where he has worked closely with Robin Rudd ever since and in 2000 he was awarded the Royal Society of Medicine Sylvia Lawler Prize. Jeremy is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Mesothelioma Interest Group and numerous other mesothelioma clinical and research groups in the UK and abroad.

Jeremy P.C. Steele, MD, MRCP
54 New Cavendish Street London, W1G 8TQ
United Kingdom

Robert N. Taub, MD, PhD

Dr. Taub is a medical oncologist who directs the Connective Tissue Oncology Program at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, where there are a number of ongoing multimodality studies of patients with pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma. Dr. Taub is the Vivian and Seymour Milstein Professor of Clinical Medicine.

Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
161 Fort Washington Avenue, 9-930
New York, New York 10032

Anne Tsao, MD

Dr. Anne S. Tsao is an Associate Professor in the Department of Thoracic/Head & Neck Medical Oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. She is the Director of the Mesothelioma Program and the Director of the Thoracic Chemo-Radiation Program at MDACC.

Dr. Tsao is a clinician scientist and an expert in the treatment of patients with both thoracic and head and neck cancers, with a specialization in mesothelioma. She conducts both clinical and translational laboratory research and is focused on identifying new therapeutic targets and developing novel strategies for the treatment of aerodigestive cancers and mesothelioma. Her research is focused on individualizing cancer therapy through understanding the molecular mechanisms of disease. Her laboratory research efforts have recently identified Src kinase as a new target for therapy (Molecular Cancer Therapeutics) and have also shown that N-cadherin is upregulated in mesothelioma (AACR 2008, ASCO 2008).

Dr. Tsao is the principle investigator of several active clinical trials at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and is the national PI for SWOG 0905, a front-line trial of cisplatin-pemetrexed +/- cediranib in mesothelioma patients. She has been extremely successful with numerous awards and publications. She has received an ASCO Merit Award, M.D. Anderson Achievement in Research Award, ASCO Young Investigator Award, ASCO Career Development Award, NIH Clinician Scientist K12 Award, and Head and Neck SPORE Career Development Award. She serves as Program Project Leader on several large grants, including the Department of Defense PROSPECT grant. She has several first author publications in Journal of Clinical Oncology, CA Cancer, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (CEBP), Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Cancer, Nature Medicine Clinical Oncology and Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. Dr. Tsao serves on the SWOG Mesothelioma Steering Committee, SWOG Lung Executive Committee, RTOG Lung Executive Committee, and is on the Scientific Board of the American Radium Society. She lectures on both a national and international level on novel therapies in the aerodigestive malignancies.

Raffit Hassan, MD
Immediate Past Chairman

Dr. Hassan, is an Investigator and Chief of the Solid Tumor Immunotherapy Section in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Hassan is a medical oncologist whose laboratory and clinical research is focused on developing novel therapies for the treatment of mesothelioma. Work done by him and his collaborators has shown that mesothelin, a tumor antigen which was discovered at the NCI, is a useful target for tumor-specific therapy of malignant mesothelioma. His group is presently conducting clinical trials of three different agents targeting mesothelin namely, SS1P an anti-mesothelin immunotoxin, MORAb-009 a chimeric anti-mesothelin monoclonal antibody and CRS-207 a mesothelin tumor vaccine.

National Cancer Institute
Building 37, Room 5116
Bethesda, MD 20892