Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center President and CEO Dr. Craig B. Thompson Keynotes Lasker Lessons in Leadership Workshop

The keynote speaker for this event was Craig B. Thompson, MD, president and CEO of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Thompson discussed the successful leadership strategies that have guided his career, and described his approach to creating healthier communities through science and medicine.

This career-oriented workshop for postgraduate medical research students was held earlier today at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Main Campus in Bethesda, MD. The keynote speech and associated panel discussion will made available within the next few days for viewers to watch at http://videocast.nih.gov/PastEvents.asp?c=0&s=1.

In addition to his leadership role at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center – the world's oldest and largest private institution devoted to cancer prevention, treatment, research, and education – Dr. Thompson also serves as member of the Medical Advisory Board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a member of the Board of Directors of the American Association for Cancer Research, a member of the Lasker Prize Jury, and Associate Editor of the journals Cell, Immunity, and Cancer Cell.

Dr. Thompson has published more than 350 peer-reviewed manuscripts and more than 85 reviews. He holds several patents related to immunotherapy and apoptosis, and is a founder of three biotechnology companies.

"Dr. Thompson is an accomplished physician, researcher and inventor," said Lasker Foundation President Claire Pomeroy, MD, MBA. "Throughout his remarkable career, he has harnessed the power of his leadership, creativity and intellect to drive progress in cancer research. We are eager for our students to learn the skills and model the behaviors of those who have truly advanced scientific discovery."

This student education program, which was developed by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation in collaboration with the International Biomedical Research Alliance and the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program, is co-sponsored by WCG and Certara.

"In the mission to cure cancer, there is no task more important than nurturing and educating the next generation of medical and scientific leaders," commented WCG Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Donald A. Deieso, PhD. "Thanks to visionaries like Dr. Thompson, we are poised to make tremendous strides against a disease that claims one in seven people worldwide. We must ensure that tomorrow's researchers are well prepared to continue – and ultimately win – the fight."

To accelerate progress toward a cure for cancer, WCG has dedicated an entire division to the review of clinical research in oncology. That division, WCG Oncology™, currently oversees more than 1,000 oncology research protocols at more than 4,000 sites across the U.S.

"We share Dr. Thompson's determination to leverage science and medicine to create novel approaches to combat cancer," added Certara CEO Edmundo Muniz, MD, PhD. "Biosimulation, also known as modeling and simulation, has a specific and profound impact on the development of oncology and immunology therapies. It can be used to quantify drug effect, support dose/schedule selection, predict clinical outcome, test multiple combinations of oncology drugs, evaluate the impact of drug-drug interactions, develop new formulations, and identify covariates that are predictive of antitumor activity to support personalized medicine strategies."

Lasker Lessons in Leadership attendees will also have the opportunity to engage in a mentor panel discussion. The panelists will build upon Dr. Thompson's presentation by sharing their personal experiences, offering guidance on how to confront clinical challenges, and describing the best ways to raise and address public awareness of health-related issues.

The panel will be composed of experts in oncology and HIV therapeutics: John E. Niederhuber, MD, executive vice president and CEO of Inova Translational Medicine Institute, adjunct professor of oncology and surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Network, and advisor to WCG Oncology; Christina Annunziata, MD, PhD, an investigator in the Women's Malignancies Branch of the National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research at the NIH; and Marshall Fordyce, MD, director of clinical research at Gilead Sciences.  

For additional information regarding the Lasker Lessons in Leadership series, please contact Randi Balletta at [email protected].

Further information about the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program can be found at http://oxcam.gpp.nih.gov.

About WIRB-Copernicus Group

WIRB-Copernicus Group (WCG) is one of the world's leading providers of solutions that measurably improve the quality and efficiency of clinical research. The industry's first Clinical Services Organization (CSO), WCG enables biopharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations and institutions to accelerate the delivery of new treatments and therapies to patients, while maintaining the highest standards of human subject protections.

WCG solutions include contract and budget negotiation, study start-up acceleration, regulatory and ethical review services, oversight of research involving gene therapy, and lab safety consulting. Powered by a suite of proprietary technologies, WCG solutions help clients to increase regulatory compliance and support the digital management of clinical trials. For more information, please visit www.wcgclinical.com or follow us on Twitter @WCGClinical.

About Certara

Certara is a global biosimulation and regulatory writing company, committed to optimizing drug development decisions. Its clients include hundreds of international biopharmaceutical companies, leading academic institutions, and key regulatory agencies. Certara's solutions, which span drug discovery through patient care, increase the probability of regulatory and commercial success by using the most scientifically-advanced modeling and simulation technologies and regulatory strategies. For more information, visit www.certara.com.

About the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program

The NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program was created in 2001, through collaboration between the NIH and Oxford and Cambridge Universities, to revolutionize the way in which the most talented biomedical PhD and MD/PhD students in the United States and the European Union are taught. These students receive accelerated training, work on collaborative projects that address critical biomedical research problems, and graduate earlier than in traditional programs with a PhD degree from either Oxford or Cambridge University. They spend an equal amount of time with a mentor in a laboratory at either Oxford or Cambridge University and an NIH Intramural Laboratory.

About the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation

Founded in 1942, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation seeks to improve health by accelerating support for medical research through recognition of scientific excellence, public education, and advocacy. For much of the last Century, the Foundation was led by Mary Lasker, who was America's most prominent citizen-activist for public investment in medical research. She is widely credited with motivating the White House and Congress to greatly expand federal funding for medical research, particularly through the National Institutes of Health. For more information, please visit: http://www.laskerfoundation.org.

About the International Biomedical Research Alliance

The Alliance's mission is to support the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program and associated global PhD and MD/PhD training programs based in the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, America's largest biomedical research organization. Its goal is to assure the financial viability and scientific excellence of the Scholars' program by supplementing government funding. The Alliance supports program events and scholarships designed to enrich the program and broaden the perspectives of its highly selective students as they train to become the next leaders in biomedical research. It was created in 2005 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. For more information, please visit http://biomedalliance.org.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140422/77410
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150519/217142LOGO

SOURCE WIRB-Copernicus Group

Related Links

http://www.wcgclinical.com