Chair, Scientific Advsiory Board

Dr. Norton is Senior Vice President, Office of the President; Medical Director, Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is Professor of Medicine, Weill-Cornell Medical College. He is a founder and Scientific Director of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Dr. Norton is the founding incumbent of the Norna S. Sarofim Chair of Clinical Oncology at MSKCC and a Professor of Medicine in the Weill Cornell Medical College. He was a U.S. Presidential appointee to the National Cancer Advisory Board (the board of directors of the NCI) serving as Chair of the Budget Sub-Committee. A former Director of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, he served as President of ASCO and subsequently Chair of the ASCO Foundation, now the Conquer Cancer Foundation. He has been Vice-Chair of the Lymphoma Committee and a long-serving Chair of the Breast Committee of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (now the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology). He has served on or chaired numerous committees of the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He is an editorial board member or reviewer for numerous medical journals and on the advisory boards of many advocacy and medical institutions including the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center and several Specialized Programs of Research Excellence. Dr. Norton’s personal research has focused on the use of medicines to treat cancer, particularly the application of mathematical methods to optimizing dose and schedule. He has been involved in the development of several effective agents including paclitaxel and trastuzumab. He co-invented the Norton-Simon Model of cancer growth which has broadly influenced cancer therapy, and more recently the self-seeding concept of cancer metastasis and growth. He is the Principal Investigator of an NCI Program Project Grant in Models of Human Breast Cancer and an author of more than 350 published articles and many book chapters. He received his AB with Highest Distinction from the University of Rochester and his MD from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. He trained in medicine and medical research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Chawla holds medical licensures in both Texas and California, and he is board certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology He is a pioneering physician whose work in sarcoma oncology has brought him several accolades and recognition as one of the world’s leading authorities in medical treatment and clinical research for bone and soft-tissue sarcomas and sarcoma therapy. Dr. Chawla heads the Sarcoma Oncology Center in Santa Monica, CA. Dr. Chawla serves on the clinical faculty of numerous prestigious cancer centers, including UCLA, USC, John Wayne Cancer Institute at St. John’s Hospital; he has been an adjunct associate professor at Stanford University and is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; and he is a medical oncologist at Cedars Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center. Over his 30 years of medical and clinical research experience, Dr. Chawla’s research has been a foundation for further breakthroughs in cancer treatment. Dr. Chawla received his medical degree and completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Kurzrock joined University of California San Diego Moores Cancer Center in November 2012 as Senior Deputy Center Director for Clinical Science. She is also the Murray Professor of Medicine, Director of the Clinical Trials Office and, on July 1, 2014, became the Chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology Division (in the UC San Diego School of Medicine) . Dr. Kurzrock’s charge includes growing and innovating the clinical trials program, and heading the newly established Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy and the UCSD Moores Cancer Center Clinical Trials Office. Dr. Kurzrock is best known for successfully creating and chairing the largest Phase I clinical trials department in the world while at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Kurzrock’s unique approach emphasizes using cutting-edge molecular profiling technologies to match patients with novel targeted therapies, reflecting a personalized strategy to optimize cancer treatment. Dr. Kurzrock has served as the Principal Investigator (PI) on more than 90 clinical trials, and overseen over 300 trials, mainly using novel targeted molecules, several of which have gone on to FDA approval. She has published over 500 peer-reviewed articles in a variety of elite medical journals. In addition, she is Chair of the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) Early Therapeutics Committee and on their Board of Governors and also serves on the Board of Directors for NCCN and for WIN (World-Wide Innovative Network for Personalized Cancer Therapy). She Chairs the Molecular Diagnostic Clinical Trials committee for the American Association of Cancer Institutes, as well as the Clinical Investigator Committee for NCCN, and the Clinical Trials Committee for WIN. Dr Kurzrock has been the PI of numerous grants and funding awards totaling over 50 million dollars. Dr. Kurzrock received her MD degree from the University of Toronto.

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Lahav is the Novartis Professor of Systems Biology and Department Chair, Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lahav leads a department at Harvard that uses the power of systems thinking, across macro and micro scales, to unlock new insights into health and disease. Dr. Lahav’s goal is to determine why human cancer cells often show different responses to the same treatment, and to identify new therapies that will increase the efficacy of anti-cancer drugs. Dr. Lahav’s research program works across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Dr. Lahav’s lab has pioneered computational and quantitative experimental approaches to studying the fate and behavior of human cells in disease and health at the single-cell level. Dr. Lahav’s work has yielded critical insights into the function and behavior of tumor-suppressing mechanisms and their role in cellular destiny. Dr. Lahav has been recognized through several awards and honors including the Smith Family Award, Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, and Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring awards. Dr. Lahav has established and organized leadership and management workshops for postdocs and faculty, as well as developed programs for advancing women in science. Dr. Lahav received her PhD in 2001 from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. In 2003, she completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. She then spent a year at Harvard’s Bauer Center for Genomics Research, and in 2004 joined the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. In 2018 Lahav became the Chair of the Department of Systems Biology.

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Schiller is a well-published clinical investigator in acute and chronic leukemias, multiple myeloma, and other hematologic malignancies, as well as in stem cell and bone marrow transplantation. He lectures extensively, and has also written for the popular press. He is Immediate-Past Chairman of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. His research projects include clinical studies of new drugs, therapies, and bone marrow/stem cell transplantation for patients with malignancies of the blood or bone marrow such as leukemia, multiple myeloma, and lymphoma. He has carried out studies of stem cell transplantation following high-dose chemotherapy and radiation for acute myelogenous leukemia, one of the most common types of leukemia in adults. He has ongoing studies using new drugs and therapeutics for acute and chronic lymphocytic leukemia, acute and chronic myelogenous leukemia, and multiple myeloma; he also has studies going on in certain kinds of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Sickle Cell Anemia. Dr. Schiller received his MD from the USC School of Medicine.

Scientific Advisor

Dr. George W. Sledge, Jr., M.D. is Professor and former Chief of Medical Oncology at Stanford University Medical Center. Dr. Sledge served as a Ballve-Lantero Professor of Oncology of Medicine and Pathology of Indiana University School of Medicine. He served as Co-Director of the breast cancer program at the Indiana University Cancer Center, where he was a Professor of Medicine and Pathology at the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center. Dr. Sledge specializes in the study and treatment of breast cancer and directed the first large, nationwide study on the use of paclitaxel to treat advanced breast cancer. His recent research focuses on novel biologic treatments for breast cancer. He served as a Professor of Indiana University Cancer Center Breast Cancer Program. He has also served as the chair of ASCO’s Education Committee, as a member of the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program’s Integration Panel, as a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Oncology Drug Advisory Committee (ODAC), and as a member of the External Advisory Committee for The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project. Dr. Sledge was awarded the Hope Funds for Cancer Research 2013 Award of ‘Excellence for Medicine’. He holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin and an M.D. from Tulane University.