Scientific Advisory Panel




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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Martin Mihm, M.D.

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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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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Neal Rosen, M.D.

Enid A. Haupt Chair in Medical Oncology

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

 

Dr. Rosen is a Member of the Department of Medicine and the Program in Molecular Pharmacology and Chemistry at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he serves as the Head of Developmental Therapeutics. He is also a Professor of Pharmacology, Cell Biology and Medicine at the Cornell University Medical School.

 

Dr. Rosen received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Columbia College and an M.D., Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and post-doctoral training and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute. He was on the senior staff of the Medicine Branch at the U.S. National Cancer Institute prior to joining the faculty of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

 

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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.

 

*Dr. Rosenberg serves on the MRA Scientific Advisory Panel in his personal capacity.



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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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