Christopher Hahn
Executive Director, Meso Foundation

Chris Hahn is an Order of the Coif graduate of the Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, where he focused on public policy and nonprofit law. For eleven years he represented nonprofits, individuals, small businesses, and large corporations in commercial litigation and business transactions, first with a major national law firm, and then, after relocating to Santa Barbara, with a leading regional law firm. In 2000 he realized his dream of combining his analytic, problem-solving, communication and strategizing skills with his passion for public service, joining the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation as its first Executive Director. Under Chris’ leadership the Foundation has become the largest independent, peer-reviewed funding body for mesothelioma research in the world; has instituted the annual international mesothelioma symposium to advance scientific understanding while uniting and energizing the entire meso community; has helped countless patients and families find a meso medical expert, treatment and hope; and has involved parties from all sides of the mesothelioma tragedy in the non-controversial, human-based effort to fund the research needed to find a cure.

Zinnia Maravell, L.Ac.
Center for Integrative Medicine, Washington DC

Zinnia Maravell is a graduate of the Maryland Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Bethesda and has a national certification from the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Zinnia has done advanced work in Pulse Reading and Five Elements acupuncture. Besides her private practice, she works at the Center for Integrative Medicine in Washington. Her personal practice of the Alexander Technique, yoga, qi gong and meditation has given her the energy and focus to live a multifaceted life. She has actively exhibited her visual art work in the DC area and written regulations for the Federal Government for 28 years. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College and has an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

Kathleen Wesa, MD
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Kathleen Wesa, MD, is a physician-scientist in the Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. She received her medical degree from the University of Minnesota School of Medicine, followed by an Internal Medicine Residency and Rheumatology Fellowship. Prior to joining Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2007, she worked at Hennepin County Medical Center in the Department of Medicine, Division of Addiction and Alternative Medicine.

Dr Wesa is a board-certified internist specializing in treating patients with symptoms related to cancer or cancer treatment. She uses an integrative approach to combine evidence based complementary therapies with conventional treatments in managing cancer-related symptoms.

Dr Wesa is also a reviewer for the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Therapies, the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Cancer and the Journal of the Society for Integrative Oncology. She is actively involved in investigating the scientific basis of complementary therapies and has lectured throughout the USA, India, Europe and Asia regarding Complementary Therapies. Her primary research interests include vitamin D, medicinal mushrooms, botanical therapies and the mind-body therapies of self-hypnosis, meditation and yoga.

Robert N. Taub, MD, PhD
Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Robert Taub is Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Professor of Clinical Medicine, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons; Director, Columbia University Mesothelioma Center; and Attending Oncologist, Columbia University Medical Center. He is a medical oncologist and hematologist with a special interest in the diagnosis, clinical care, and investigation of patients with malignant mesothelioma and soft tissue sarcoma.

The Columbia Mesothelioma Center under Dr. Taub’s direction is developing unique new treatment algorithms utilizing intracavitary chemotherapy for multimodal treatment of abdominal mesothelioma and for lung-sparing treatment of pleural mesothelioma. Dr Taub’s interests are in investigator-initiated cell-biology based laboratory and translational studies in mesothelioma and soft tissue sarcoma, in collaboration with the Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Departments of Surgery and Pathology, as a means of optimizing the clinical care that he and his colleagues directly provide to these patients.

Daniel H. Sterman, MD
University of Pennsylvania Medical Center

Dr. Dan Sterman is currently Associate Professor of Medicine and Associate Professor of Medicine in Surgery, and the Director of the PENN Interventional Pulmonology Program and Clinical Director of the Thoracic Oncology Gene Therapy Program of the Center for Lung Cancer and Related Disorders of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. His clinical interests are related to the treatment of thoracic malignancies, specifically as they apply to the synergy of molecular medicine and novel technologies in Interventional Pulmonology. His research interests are in the translation of laboratory discoveries from the bench to the bedside: conducting human clinical trials of gene therapy and vaccine therapy for lung cancer, mesothelioma, and other pleural malignancies.

Christine Jablonski, RD, LDN
St. Agnes Hospital, Baltimore

Dr. Christine Jablonski graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in Dietetics in 2005. She completed her post graduate training at Massachusetts General Hospital and became a Registered Dietitian in 2006. Christine has been the oncology dietitian at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore for three years, focusing her care on in-patient oncology patients as well as the outpatients receiving either chemotherapy or radiation in the Cancer Center. Christine works with many  patients with all types of cancer.  She provides lectures for several oncology support groups and lectures on cancer prevention. Christine is a member of the Maryland and American Dietetic Associations, as well as the Oncology Dietetic Practice Group.

Andrew R. Haas, MD, PhD
University of Pennsylvania Medical Center

Dr. Andrew Haas is currently Director of Clinical Operations for the Section of Interventional Pulmonology and Thoracic Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. Dr. Haas has advanced training in the following techniques: flexible and rigid bronchoscopy; balloon bronchoplasty, endobronchial stent placement (metal and silicone), endobronchial brachytherapy, photodynamic therapy, auto-fluorescence bronchoscopy (LIFE), transbronchial needle aspiration/biopsy, bronchoscopic electrosurgery (including argon plasma coagulation), endobronchial ultrasound (radial and convex probe), percutaneous tracheotomy, and pleuroscopy.

His clinical interests are related to the treatment of thoracic malignancies, specifically with regard to the application of novel technologies in Interventional Pulmonology to design and to improve the diagnosis and treatment of thoracic malignancies. His research interests are in the translation of laboratory discoveries from the bench to the bedside: conducting human clinical trials of gene therapy and vaccine therapy for lung cancer, mesothelioma, and other pleural malignancies.

Paul Sugarbaker, MD
Washington Hospital Center

Dr. Paul Sugarbaker, is a mentor, investigator, and has lectured extensively, both nationally and internationally, earning numerous awards and citations. He is best known for his expertise in gastrointestinal oncology and colorectal cancer surgery and in rare diseases such as pseudomyxoma peritonei, peritoneal mesothelioma, abdominal sarcomas, and peritoneal carcinomatosis.

Dr. Sugarbaker has pioneered specialty treatment procedures such as cytoreductive surgery with heated intraoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy and hyperthermia treatments using the Thermotron RF-8. He has published more than 780 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, numerous book chapters and textbooks.

H. Richard Alexander, MD
University of Maryland

Dr. Richard Alexander is an internationally recognized surgical oncologist and clinical researcher. He treats cancer patients at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center and is associate chairman for clinical research in the University of Maryland Department of Surgery.

Dr. Alexander is recognized for developing innovative techniques to treat patients with malignant peritoneal mesothelioma. His clinical research program has been instrumental in establishing that operative cytoreduction and intra-operative hyperthermic perfusion with chemotherapy is associated with durable clinical benefit. His laboratory is focused on identifying new therapeutic interventions based on elucidating the molecular profiles and cellular pathways that are activated in peritoneal mesothelioma.

John Chabot, MD
Columbia University Medical Center

Dr John Chabot is the Vice Chair for General Surgery and Division Chief, GI/Endocrine Surgery at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY. Dr Chabot is responsible for the surgical management of patients with malignant peritoneal mesothelioma. His current research involves the use of surgery, Intraperitoneal chemotherapy and immunotherapy in treating peritoneal mesothelioma. 

Marc de Perrot, MD
Toronto General Hospital

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.

Raja Flores, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center 

Dr. Raja Flores has been an attending thoracic surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York for approximately nine years using minimally invasive surgical techniques to cure lung cancer, esophageal cancer, and malignant mesothelioma. He started the VATS lobectomy program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and has been a world educator on this technique. He also obtained masters in biostatistics and clinical research methods at Columbia University. And has put together several sentinel papers in mesothelioma including the largest single center experience and the largest series comparing Extrapleural Pneumonectomy to Pleurectomy Decortication. He continues to maintain a database of over 1,000 patients with mesothelioma and is currently investigating the use of Biomarkers in the management of malignant mesothelioma.

Kenneth Rosenzweig, MD
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Dr. Kenneth Rosenzweig is a radiation oncologist with clinical expertise in treating cancers of the chest: non-small cell lung cancer, small cell lung cancer, mesothelioma, and thymoma. His research involves adapting the latest technology to allow for safer, more aggressive radiation therapy for lung cancer.

Julie R. Brahmer, MD
Johns Hopkins Medical Institution

Dr. Julie Brahmer is an Assistant Professor of Oncology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Brahmer is an active clinical leader in the treatment of lung cancer and mesothelioma at SKCCC.  She is in charge organizing the multidisciplinary thoracic malignancy conference whose members meet weekly to discuss thoracic malignancy cases that need a multidisciplinary review/approach.  She is also a part of the oncology pain team headed by Dr. Stuart Grossman.

Raffit Hassan, MD
National Cancer Institute
Chairman, Meso Foundation Science Advisory Board

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.

Mary Hesdorffer, MS, APRN
Nurse Practitioner/Medical Liaison, Meso Foundation

Mary Hesdorffer received her undergraduate degree at the College of New Rochelle in NY and went on to receive her Masters of Science at the same institution. She is fully credentialed as a Nurse Practitioner and has spent the past 12 years actively treating patients with mesothelioma. Mary has an expertise in the development and implementation of clinical trials. She has published in peer reviewed journals and has lectured nationally on the topics pertaining to mesothelioma with particular emphasis on clinical trials as well as symptom and disease management, she is well known to the Foundation's community having attended and spoken at many of our symposiums. Mary is passionate in her commitment to the treatment and management of this disease and hopes to increase awareness of the need to advance the science that will lead to a cure. She is available via phone or email to assist patients and caregivers as they move from chaos to control of this new situation they find themselves thrust into.