Alexandria, VA— Organizers of the 2008 Annual Meeting on Molecular Markers in Cancer today announced the winners of the Symposium Merit Awards. Nineteen physicians-in-training will receive funding to assist with their travel to attend the meeting, to be held October 30 – November 1 in Hollywood, FL.
“We are proud to honor this year’s Merit Award winners for their outstanding contribution to an exciting new field of cancer treatment,” said Bruce E. Johnson, MD, chair of the Symposium Organizing Committee and Professor of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School. “Our commitment to improving patient care is always a top priority and we are pleased to assist these bright young researchers whose work reflects this mission.”
The ASCO Cancer Foundation Merit Awards are designed to promote clinical research by young scientists and provide fellows with an opportunity to present their research and interact with other clinical cancer investigators at ASCO scientific meetings. This year’s awardees are the first group of physicians to receive ASCO’s Merit Awards in molecular markers and represent institutions from across the globe. Awardees were selected based on the scientific merit of their abstracts and will present their research during the meeting.
The second annual meeting on Molecular Markers in Cancer will bring together clinicians, pathologists, researchers and others to accelerate progress in the rapidly advancing field of cancer markers. Evidence-based cancer diagnosis and treatment depends increasingly on the development of new molecular markers for the assessment of prognosis, treatment selection and agent development.
Co-sponsors include the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the National Cancer Institute and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer.
2008 Annual Meeting on Molecular Markers in Cancer Merit Award Recipients
Achim Rody, MD
J.W. Goethe University Breast cancers with stem cell-like features delineate endocrine responsiveness
Jose A. Karam, MD
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Survivin as a prognostic marker for urothelial carcinoma of the bladder: A multi-institutional study
Shahrokh Shariat, MD
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Multi-institutional external validation of the predictive value of KI-67 labeling index in patients treated with radical cystectomy
Jeffrey M. Venstrom, MD
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Improved survival following autologous stem cell transplant for neuroblastoma was associated with missing ligand by KIR-HLA genotyping
Kerry J. Williams, MD
Washington University in St. Louis Prospective analysis of the impact of UGT1A1 genotype-based dose modification on hematological toxicities in patients treated with irinotecan-based therapy: Update on the Washington University experience.
Roberto Vargas
Pennsylvania State University / Hershey Medical Center Elevated pretreatment serum TIMP-1 predicts shorter survival in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.
Karijn P. Suijkerbuijk, MD
University Medical Center Utrecht Methylation as a biomarker for breast cancer classification
Naresh Bellam, MD
University of Alabama at Birmingham Overexpression of topoisomerase IIß binding protein 1 (TopBP1) is associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer (BC)
Ruth E. Board, MB, ChB, MSc
Paterson Institute of Cancer Research Detection of BRAF mutations in tumor and serum of patients with advanced melanoma.
Daniel S. Tan, MRCP
National Cancer Centre Singapore Why excision repair cross complementing-1 (ERCC1) cannot yet be used to personalize chemotherapy regimens in advanced non-small cell lung carcinoma (aNSCLC): A systematic review
Lauren A. Byers, MD
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Cytokine and angiogenic factor (CAF) profiling of non-small cell lung cancer cell lines identifies secreted proteins associated with response to chemotherapy and targeted agents
AB Rashid R. Mir, PhD
All India Institute of Medical Sciences Prevalence, incidence, and clinical significance of two P-loop mutations (Y253H and E255N) in imatinib mesylate resistance CML patients.
John S. Yordy, MD, PhD
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Protein expression profiling identifies markers of radiation sensitivity and resistance in the NCI 60 cell lines
Kimberly E. Resnick, MD
The Ohio State University Medical Center The detection of differentially expressed microRNAs from the serum of ovarian cancer patients using a novel real-time PCR platform
Ricardo H. Alvarez, MD
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center The combination of paclitaxel (Pac) and bevacizumab (Bev) increases the tumor uptake of Pac and decrease the interstitial fluid pressure (IFP) in breast cancer xenograft.
Lauren C. Harshman, MD
Stanford Hospital and Clinic Bevacizumab-associated erythrocytosis in advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC)
Rosa M. Michel, MD
Instituto Nacional de Cancerología Serum human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is associated with tumoral angiogenesis but not with VEGF tissue expression in germ cell testicular tumors
Saby George, MD
University of Texas Health Sciences Center Sunitinib therapy alters VEGF, Flt-3 ligand (FL) and macrophage colony stimulating factor (MCSF) in patients (pts) with renal cell carcinoma (RCC)
David Saavedra, MD
Instituto Nacional de Cancerología Carcinoembryonic antigen serum levels, EGFR and HER2 expression as biomarkers of brain metastasis development in advanced non-small cell lung cancer
The 2008 ASCO Cancer Foundation Merit Award is supported through restricted educational grants from American Cancer Society, Amgen Oncology, Aptium Oncology, Bristol-Myers Squibb and ImClone Systems Incorporated, Celgene Corporation, Lilly Oncology, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Novartis Oncology, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., OSI Oncology, sanofi-aventis U.S. and Wyeth.
