Cancer – “Translating Discoveries in Cancer to Treatments”

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(Part 7)	(Part 8)

This session will feature two clinician/researcher pairs talking about their work in different areas of cancer research.

Pair 1

Research
Christopher Crum, MD, MPH, Professor, Dept. of Pathology, BWH

Clinical
Akila Viswanathan, MD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Radiation Oncology, BWH

Pair 2

Research
Jonathan Fletcher, MD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Pathology, BWH

Clinical
Raphael Bueno, MD, Professor, Dept. of Surgery, BWH

Session Chairs:

Alexandra Golby, MD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Surgery, BWH
David Sugarbaker, MD, Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery, BWH

Bios

Dr. Raphael Bueno has focused most of his recent research on treating mesothelioma. He has studied the prevention and management of complications following extrapleural pneumonectomies, a common surgical procedure for pleural mesothelioma patients. He has also studied which factors are associated with long-term survival following this surgery. Dr. Bueno aims to better understand mesothelioma at the molecular level and create new diagnostic and therapeutic treatments with his finding as well as to identify prognostic and diagnostic markers for both mesothelioma and lung cancer patients. As part of his mesothelioma research, Bueno has led a team of doctors and scientists to develop the mesothelioma predictive test, which has accurately identified patients who will benefit from surgery.

Dr. Christopher Crum’s research focuses on the pathobiology of cancer precursors in the female genital tract. His laboratory has interests centered on the novel concept that pelvic serous cancer arises in many instances from the distal fallopian tube. His research team’s hope is that a fully characterized precursor to pelvic serous cancer will encourage new directions in ovarian/fallopian tube cancer detection and prevention.

Dr. Jonathan Fletcher’s research involves genetic/biological characterizations of novel potential cancer-causing genes and tumor suppressor genes, particularly in sarcomas and pediatric cancers.  His present research direction is to identify and validate novel targeted therapies in cancer with the aim of rapid translation from bench to clinic. Fletcher’s laboratory studies from the past five years have culminated in FDA approval of new targeted therapeutics for five cancer applications.

Dr. Alexandra Golby practices clinical neurosurgery with a focus on the treatment of brain tumors and epilepsy. Her clinical expertise is in the treatment of patients with lesions in the eloquent cortex and the use of functional brain mapping techniques, including awake surgery, to improve neurologic outcome. Her contributions to the clinical work of the Neurosurgery Department focus on the translation of neuroscience techniques in functional brain mapping, particularly functional MRI (fMRI) and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), to the clinical realm. In particular, she is leading the development and validation of fMRI for the pre-operative evaluation of patients with lesions in motor and language areas of the brain.

Dr. David Sugarbaker’s research focuses on noncardiac thoracic disease, with particular emphasis on lung cancer and mesothelioma. The focus of Dr. Sugarbaker’s work over the past several decades has been the development of innovative surgical techniques and basic research to deal with these devastating afflictions. He is largely credited with developing the surgical technique for mesothelioma resection and for recognizing the importance of a multimodality approach to treatment that combines surgery with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. He founded and currently directs the International Mesothelioma Program at BWH.

Dr. Akila Viswanathan specializes in gynecologic malignancies and image-guided brachytherapy. She designed clinical trials of real-time MRI-based image-guided brachytherapy and CT-based imaging for gynecologic cancer patients. She implemented the first use of Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) techniques at the Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s for selected gynecologic cancer patients. In addition to clinical outcomes, Dr. Viswanathan’s research focuses on risk factors and prevention of endometrial cancer.