Scientific Advisory Board



Martin Mihm, M.D. - Co-Chair

Clinical Professor of Pathology
Senior Dermataopathologist
Massachusetts General Hospital
Co-Director, World Health Organization Melanoma Pathology Program

Dr. Mihm is currently Clinical Professor of Dermatology and Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Senior Dermatopathologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Mihm now holds five adjunct professorships at different schools in the United States. He is the Co-Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Melanoma Pathology Program. He also was a Co-Founder of the Rare Tumor Institute of the WHO in Milan, Italy and acted as external coordinator for five years. He was recently named Co-Director of the EORTC melanoma pathology program. He has written over four hundred articles and authored and co-authored twelve books.

Dr. Mihm graduated summa cum laude from Duquesne University in 1955. He obtained his M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in 1961. He specialized in Internal Medicine, Dermatology, Pathology, and Dermatopathology. He started residency in dermatology at MGH in 1964 and after completing pathology residency joined the staff in 1973. In 1976, he founded one of the first five residency training programs in Dermatopathology in the United States. He became a professor at Harvard Medical School in 1980. He joined the faculty of Albany Medical Center in 1993 to establish a dermatology and dermatopathology training program. In 1996 he returned to MGH to continue work in melanoma and to establish a vascular malformation clinic.

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Jonathan Simons, M.D. - Co-Chair

President and CEO, David H. Koch Chair, Prostate Cancer Foundation
Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Material Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, NCI Center of Nanotechnology Excellence

Dr. Simons is an internationally recognized physician-scientist, oncologist, and acclaimed investigator in translational prostate cancer research. Prior to joining the Prostate Cancer Foundation in 2007, he was distinguished Service Professor of Hematology and Oncology at the Emory University School of Medicine and Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Simons is the founding director of the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University in Atlanta and Co-Director of the National Cancer Institute Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence at Emory and Georgia Tech.

Dr. Simons received a B.A. from Princeton University and an M.D. from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Before entering medical school he was a Rotary International Postgraduate Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, and a Nuffield Foundation Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Simons completed his residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard Medical School and his fellowship in medical oncology at Johns Hopkins. He is also board-certified in internal medicine and medical oncology.

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J. Carl Barrett, Ph.D.

Global Head, Oncology Biomarkers and Imaging
Novartis Institutes of BioMedical Sciences, Inc.

Dr. J. Carl Barrett is the Global Head of Oncology Biomarkers and Imaging for Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc., with responsibility for the identification and development of biomarkers to support compound development from the basic research through translational/exploratory development to clinical development in oncology. Prior to joining Novartis, Dr. Barrett was the founding Director of the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research and Scientific Director at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Trained as a chemist at the College of William and Mary, Dr. Barrett received his Ph.D. degree in Biophysical Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University. He has published over 500 research articles and reviews in leading scientific journals and books. He is a member of the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars, an elected member of the Ramazini Foundation, and a recipient of multiple NIH awards and keynote lectures.

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Jonathan Cebon, M.B.B.S., F.R.A.C.P., Ph.D.

Director, Medical Oncology Austin Health
Head Cancer Vaccine Laboratory, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
Professor of Medicine, University of Melbourne

Dr. Cebon is Director of the Joint Austin Ludwig Oncology Unit in Melbourne Australia, a Member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Head of the Institute's Cancer Vaccine Laboratory in Melbourne, Professor in Medicine at the University of Melbourne, a Practitioner Fellow of the National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia, and Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He trained in Medical Oncology and Clinical Hematology at the Austin Hospital, Peter MacCallum Institute, and Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia and has worked as a visiting clinician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and at the University of Washington. He is a member of Cancer Trials Australia, Cancer Vaccine Collaborative (CVC), American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Association for Cancer Research, Clinical Oncology Society of Australia, Medical Oncology Group of Australia, Victorian Co-operative Oncology Group, and Australian Medical Association.

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Glenn Dranoff, M.D.

Director, Human Gene Transfer Laboratory Core
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Dranoff is the Leader of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Program in Immunology and Co-Leader of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Cancer Vaccine Center. His research focuses on understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the stimulation of anti-tumor immunity, and on the development of cancer vaccines. He was elected to the Academy of Cancer Immunology, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society Stohlman Scholar. He is Director of the Human Gene Transfer Laboratory and a Staff Member of the departments of medical oncology and hematologic neoplasia at Dana-Farber, and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Dranoff received his B.S. from Duke University and his M.D. from Duke University School of Medicine in 1985. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and a clinical fellowship in medical oncology at DFCI. He received post-doctoral training at the Whitehead Institute.

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Elizabeth Grimm, Ph.D.

Professor, Frances King Black Memorial Professorship of Cancer Research
Deputy Chair, Department of Experimental Therapeutics
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. Grimm is a professor and deputy chair at the University of Texas M D Anderson Cancer Center in the Department of Experimental Therapeutics. Her research is divided into two major areas: (a) fundamental cancer biology investigations of human tumor immunology and apoptosis resistance; and (b) translational studies developing new therapies and validating prognostic markers in human melanoma. Her pioneering research in the 1980's at the NCI on human cytokines, particularly IL-2, led directly to its development as the most recently approved agent for melanoma therapy in the past decade. More recently, in an attempt to reveal mechanisms of IL-2 resistance, her research has led to a focus on "carcinogenic inflammation" which is associated with melanoma expression of various deleterious inflammatory markers, particularly inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) which is proposed as a marker of poor prognosis, as well as a target for therapy.

Dr. Grimm has received continuous peer-reviewed NIH funding for over 20 years, and most recently successfully organized and was awarded the first NCI SPORE dedicated completely to Melanoma, in 2004. Dr. Grimm has authored and co-authored over 160 publications in peer-reviewed journals, and over 60 book chapters, and served on NIH and ACS peer review and executive councils. Dr. Grimm is a requested speaker and organizer at national and international conferences and symposia.

Dr. Grimm is also a Professor of Cancer Biology Program at the University of Texas, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She successfully organized and was awarded the first NIH T32 Training Grant supporting this graduate program and administered the program and training grant for a decade. She has personally mentored and supervised numerous graduate and postdoctoral students.

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Allan Halpern, M.D.

Chief of Dermatology Service
Co-Leader of Melanoma Disease Management Team
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Co-chair, National Council for Skin Cancer Prevention

Dr. Halpern is the Chief of the Dermatology Service and Co-Leader of the Melanoma Disease Management Team at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Halpern's research has focused on melanoma prevention and early detection. His work has included studies of barriers and facilitators of skin cancer screening and skin self examination, the utilization of whole-body digital imaging for melanoma surveillance in high-risk individuals, the development of novel imaging modalities for early detection of skin cancer, and studies of the evolution of nevi (moles) in adolescence. Dr. Halpern has been active in public health efforts in skin cancer prevention and early detection. He has held leadership positions in the skin cancer prevention efforts of many organizations including the Skin Cancer Foundation, American Academy of Dermatology, and American Cancer Society. Dr. Halpern is co-Chairman of the National Council for Skin Cancer Prevention. Dr. Halpern is a Board Certified Internist and Dermatologist with a masters of science degree in clinical epidemiology.

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Donald Morton, M.D.

Chief, Melanoma Program
Director, Surgical Oncology Fellowship Program
John Wayne Cancer Institute

Dr. Morton is an accomplished surgical oncologist and a renowned clinical scientist whose fundamental discoveries have profoundly changed the treatment of human cancer. His pioneering work with intratumoral bacille Calmette-Guerin for melanoma represented the first successful clinical application of immunotherapy against a metastatic human cancer. His innovative studies of sentinel node mapping changed the standard of care for patients with early-stage malignant melanoma and other solid cancers that drain via the lymphatic system.

Dr. Morton has received NIH peer-reviewed research funding for 35 years; in the year 2000 he topped a list of clinical investigators who received the most grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (Science, June 15, 2001). Dr. Morton's scientific contributions towards the immunology of cancer and surgical oncology have yielded more than 600 publications in peer-reviewed journals and have garnered him a long series of prestigious awards and honors. Dr. Morton is the past President of the International Sentinel Node Society, the Society of Surgical Oncology, and the World Federation of Surgical Oncology Societies.

Dr. Morton was Chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology at UCLA before establishing the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. As Chief of the Melanoma Program, Dr. Morton has guided the Institute to its present position as an internationally respected melanoma center. As Director of the Surgical Oncology Fellowship Program, Dr. Morton has trained more than 100 postdoctoral fellows, most of whom hold academic positions in medical schools or cancer institutes.

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Steven Rosenberg, M.D.

Chief, Surgery Branch
National Cancer Institute

Dr. Rosenberg is Chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and a Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, DC. Dr. Rosenberg received his B.A. and M.D. degrees at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland and a Ph.D. in Biophysics at Harvard University. After completing his residency training in surgery in 1974 at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, Dr. Rosenberg became the Chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute, a position he has held to the present time.

Dr. Rosenberg has pioneered the development of immunotherapy that resulted in the first effective immunotherapies for selected patients with advanced cancer. He has also pioneered the development of gene therapy and was the first to successfully insert foreign genes into humans as treatment for cancer. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, is author of over 820 scientific articles.

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Suzanne Topalian, M.D.

Professor of Surgery and Oncology
Director, Melanoma Program, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center
Johns Hopkins University

Dr. Topalian is a physician-scientist credentialed in general surgery, with specialty training in surgical oncology and cancer immunology. After a 21-year tenure in the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, she joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in June 2006 to lead the newly-established Melanoma Program in the Kimmel Cancer Center. She has published over 100 original research articles and reviews on cancer immunology, and is internationally recognized for this work. Dr. Topalian's basic studies of human anti-tumor immune responses have provided a foundation for the translational development of immunotherapies for melanoma and other cancers, including cancer vaccines, adoptive T cell transfer, and immunomodulatory monoclonal antibodies. She was a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology's Melanoma Program Committee 2007-2008.

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