Yale Cancer Center

1. Patricia LoRusso, DO, Chief of Experimental Therapeutics at YCC/Smilow and President of American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), was at The White House recently for a Global Cancer Fund meeting to discuss how partnerships can expand cancer care access to patients in low and middle-income countries. Dr. LoRusso is in the second row from the top, second from the left.

2. The Smilow Cancer Hospital Cellular Therapies Program recently launched the cell gene therapy program at Yale/YNHH, when the Pediatric Cell Therapy team performed the first gene therapy infusion in a clinical trial for a patient with sickle cell disease. It was under the leadership of Lakshmana Krishnamurti, MD.

3. The Keynote Lecture at the 2025 ASCO Gastrointestinal (GI) Cancers Symposium in San Francisco by Pamela Kunz, MD, FASCO, director of the Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Smilow and YCC, focused on focus on health equity in clinical research and patient care. Her lecture was “Disrupting Gastrointestinal Oncology: Shattering Barriers with Inclusive Science.”

4. Welcome to Matthew Vesely, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Dermatology to membership in the Yale Cancer Center's Cancer Immunology Program. Dr. Vesely is a physician-scientist who has trained in immunology, molecular biology, genetics and clinical dermatology to integrate fundamental immunology with clinical dermatology.

5. Welcome to Raghav Sundar, MD to YCC's Developmental Therapeutics Program. Dr. Sundar is an Associate Professor of Medical Oncology, and his research focuses on genomics of gastric cancer, including the interaction between the tumor epigenome and the immune microenvironment. Dr. Sundar’s work has identified predictive biomarkers of systemic therapy in gastric cancer as well as potential therapeutic targets.

6. Yale Cancer Center welcomes William J. Kim, PhD, to its membership. He is an Assistant Professor of Urology and he aims to bridge the gap between cancer biology and data science, working towards a comprehensive understanding of cellular circuitry and the realization of the full potential of cancer precision medicine. He joins the YCC Genomics, Genetics and Epigenetics Program.

Section of Medical Oncology and Hematology

This announcement was made recently by Drs. Gary Désir, chair of the Department of Internal Medicine and Eric Winer, director, Yale Cancer Center:

We would like to announce the merger of the Department of Internal Medicine Sections of Hematology and Medical Oncology, effective January 1, 2025.

This new structure under the Department of Internal Medicine is designed to enhance collaboration among faculty members focused on cancer and to maximize efficiency. Similar joint structures are standard across most matrixed cancer centers.

The Department of Internal Medicine will continue to support the faculty within the section with primary appointments, promotions, and the faculty development annual questionnaire (FDAQ). Yale Cancer Center remains responsible for recruitment, compensation, and mentoring. The chair of Internal Medicine and the director of Yale Cancer Center will continue to share responsibility for offer letters.

We want to thank Stephanie Halene, MD, Dr Med, Arthur H. and Isabel Bunker Professor of Medicine (Hematology) and professor of pathology, for serving as the hematology section chief for over five years.

Stephanie became the first woman to serve as chief for the Section of Hematology at Yale in 2020 after working as interim chief for one year. She was appointed Arthur H. and Isabel Bunker Professor of Medicine (Hematology) in December 2021. Under her leadership, the section grew in many areas, including size, funding, diversity, and promotions. She will continue as chief of Translational Hematology at Yale Cancer Center and director of the DeLuca Center for Innovation in Hematology Research.

This newly combined organization, Medical Oncology and Hematology, becomes one of the largest sections within the Department of Internal Medicine. It will be led by Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, Ensign Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and professor of pharmacology.

Thanks to Stephanie for her leadership and dedication and to Roy for taking on this expanded role.

We have strived to make this transition seamless. Please contact us if you have any questions.

NCCN News

A reminder from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) that it has 2,800 published templates that provide information on dosing, administration, side effects, and other monitoring and safety parameters for 111 unique cancer types. Most recently, the NCCN released the new Chemotherapy Order Templates that include a drop-down menu that allows users to search by regimen name and update to all drop-down menus with a new free-text field that narrows down the menu options as you type. Employees of NCCN Member Institutions have exclusive free access to the NCCN Templates database. Click here to access now. You may be promoted to log into your NCCN account. You can create a free NCCN account using your institution email address here.

NCCN and Taiho Oncology, Inc. have a new new grant opportunity for the performance of clinical studies to further evaluate the effectiveness of zipalertinib in the treatment of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancers (NSCLC) with EGFR mutations including Exon 20 insertions or uncommon/compound mutations. The request for proposals (RFP) has been revised to encourage multi-institutional studies given the novel population for which this RFP is targeted. It can also be accessed online. Proposals must be submitted by 5 pm eastern time on Tuesday, March 18, 2025. Questions can be emailed to Nicole Zion at zion@nccn.org with the subject line, “NCCN Taiho NSCLC RFP.”

Yale Cancer Center (YCC) is pleased to call for nominations for our annual awards for excellence in research, clinical care, teaching & mentorship, staff support, leadership in DEI, and lifetime achievement. Due to the overlapping criteria we consider in recognizing excellence in teaching and mentoring, we combined the two awards into a single award.

Awards will be made at a ceremony in early April and the deadline for all nominations is Feb. 17 and should be sent via email to yccdirectorsoffice@yale.edu. The awards are:

YCC Research Awards will recognize excellence in the areas of basic science, clinical science, translational science, and population science. Awards will be chosen based on a paper or set of related papers considered to have had the greatest impact on the field. The nominee must be a current member of Yale Cancer Center and the science in the publication must be cancer-focused. To be eligible, the nominee must also be either the first or corresponding author of the publication(s). Please submit a PDF of the publication (published from Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 2024) and note the category into which it is being submitted.

The YCC Award for Clinical Excellence will recognize the physician who best exemplifies excellence in clinical care, including outstanding clinical skills, use of a patient- and family-centered approach to care, and inclusion of a multi-disciplinary care model. Nominee must be a current member of Yale Cancer Center. Please nominate an outstanding candidate with a brief nomination letter (one-page maximum).

The Yale Cancer Center Award for Excellence in Mentoring or Teaching will celebrate the faculty member who best exemplifies excellence in teaching or mentoring. Recipients of this award will have demonstrated long-term commitment and success in this area by serving as a role model, inspiring passion for cancer care or research, providing opportunities and resources for career advancement, explaining difficult concepts in innovative and creative ways, stimulating excitement, debate, and critical and independent thinking, and encouraging their trainees to grow, strive for excellence, and achieve their full potential by acquiring the skills they need to develop into outstanding health practitioners and scientists. Nominee must be a current member of Yale Cancer Center. Please nominate an outstanding candidate with a brief nomination letter (one-page maximum).

The YCC Award for Leadership in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion award recognizes a cancer center member who best exemplifies leadership in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion through support of diverse faculty and trainees, active programs to foster culture change, and serving as a role model of fairness and inclusivity. Nominee must be a current member of Yale Cancer Center. Please nominate an outstanding candidate with a brief nomination letter (one-page maximum).

The YCC Service Excellence Award is a new award created to recognize the efforts of our YCC staff who make our center operate effectively. This award is intended to recognize an individual Clerical & Technical (C&T) or Managerial & Professional (M&P) staff member at YCC who consistently goes above and beyond to provide extraordinary service and support toward accomplishing the goals and mission of YCC. Please nominate a colleague by submitting a brief nomination letter (one-page maximum).

The YCC Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the outstanding scientific, clinical, or administrative achievements of one of our members through our annual Lifetime Achievement award. Nominee has made significant contributions to YCC or Smilow Cancer Hospital and must be a current or retired member of Yale Cancer Center.

Gavitt Woodard, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery (Thoracic), received the Richard E Clark award from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons for the best study using the national database. She presented the study a comprehensive evaluation of lung cancer surgery outcomes entitled "Lobectomy versus Sublobar Resection Among Lung Cancer Patients Understudied in Recent Clinical Trials," at a recent meeting of the STS meeting in Los Angeles. For more, go here.

YCC member Ruslan Medzhitov, PhD, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology, has been elected to the American Association of Immunologists 2025 class of Distinguished Fellows of AAI. This program recognizes members for distinguished careers and outstanding scientific contributions, as well as service to AAI and the immunology community.

Siyuan (Steven) Wang, PhD, was awarded the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) Innovation in Research Award, which recognizes early- and mid-career scientists for their new and innovative research in cell biology. For more go here.

Three Yale Cancer Center physician-scientists are among five from Yale School of Medicine who have been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI). The new YCC members are Ranjit S. Bindra, MD, PhD, Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Therapeutic Radiology, professor of pathology, and co-director of the Yale Brain Tumor Center at Smilow Cancer Hospital; David A. Braun, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (medical oncology) and Louis Goodman and Alfred Gilman Yale Scholar; and Craig B. Wilen, MD, PhD, associate professor in laboratory medicine and immunobiology. The physician-scientists were elected for having “accomplished meritorious original, creative, and independent investigations in the clinical or allied sciences of medicine” and who enjoy “unimpeachable moral standing in the medical profession.” For more go here.

Jennifer Moliterno, MD, chief of neurosurgical oncology in the department of neurosurgery and clinical director of the Chenevert Family Brain Tumor Center, has been elected chair of the Tumor Section of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS). The Joint Section on Tumors is the largest organization of neurosurgical oncologists in the world. Its Executive Committee is composed of nearly 200 international experts, and Dr. Moliterno has served on it for 11 years in many positions. She will first serve as secretary and treasurer and begin her term as chair in 2027 and will be the second woman to serve in these roles in the 40-year history of the panel.

The Muzumdar Lab has been awarded another R01 grant to fund its project "Targeting pancreatic endocrine-exocrine signaling in cancer development with incretin mimetics." The lab has nearly a dozen members led by Mandar Deepak Muzumdar, MD, associate professor of genetics and of Internal Medicine (Medical Oncology), who is scientific director, Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Smilow/YCC and co-director of the center's Pancreas Program; and co-director of the training program in Genetics, Genetics & Epigentics, one of the six YCC research programs. Co-investivators on the grant include cancer center members: Smita Krishnaswamy, PhD and Richard Kibbey, MD, PhD, and also Ania Jastreboff, MD, PhD.

Awards & Honors mentioned in Direct Connect are listed here for 2025. And here for 2024.

Jan. 29 • Noon • Smilow Town Hall
Presentations on Transitioning Patient Care: Smilow Cancer Hospital at Westerly; Electronic Referral to the Extended Care Center; ED Capacity and Input; Patient Wait Times; and Q&A. Lunch provided. Smilow Auditorium, 55 Park Ave., New Haven. Those who cannot attend in person may join via Zoom.

Jan. 30 • AI Seminar Series • Noon
Dessert Topping or Floor Wax? Harnessing Large Language Models in Medical Education, with Robert Homer, MD, PhD, Professor of Pathology and of Medicine (Pulmonary). Hope 110, 315 Cedar St., or on Zoom.

Jan. 30 • Breast Cancer Symposium • 6 to 7 p.m. on Zoom
Yale's Post-San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) CME Webinar Series Part 1 (of 3). "Local-Regional Advances in Breast Cancer Care" with Meena Moran, MD and Siba Haykal, MD, PhD, FRCS, FACS. Register here.

Feb. 2 • 7:30 to 8 p.m. • Yale Cancer Answers radio program
"50 Years of Cancer Progress—Survivorship" with Tara Sanft, MD in conversation with Dr. Eric Winer. Listen live on Connecticut Public Radio.

Feb. 4 • Yale Cancer Center Grand Rounds • Noon

Tullman Lectureship presented by R. Coleman Lindsley, MD, PhD, on "The Genetics of Myeloid Malignancies: From Germline Risk to Somatic Transformation." Dr. Lindsley, of the Dana Farber cancer center, is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School specializing in leukemias, myelodysplastic syndromes, and myeloproliferative neoplasms. Smilow Auditorium, 55 Park St. New Haven. Lunch provided. Or Zoom.

Feb. 4 • 6 to 7 pm • Smilow Shares with Primary Care: Health Equity

Speakers are Lou Hart, MD; Tracy Battaglia, MD, MPH; and Jacquelyne Gaddy, MD, MSc, MSCR. Zoom only.

Feb. 6 • Breast Cancer Symposium • 6 to 7 p.m. on Zoom

Yale's Post-San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) CME Webinar Series Part 2 (of 3). "Advances in Systemic Therapy Options for Early-Stage Breast Cancer" with Maryam Lustberg, MD, MPH and Mariya Rozenblit, MD. Register in advance here.

Feb. 9 • 7:30 to 8 p.m. • Yale Cancer Answers radio program

"50 Years of Cancer Progress—Radiation Oncology" with Peter Glazer, MD, PhD in conversation with Dr. Eric Winer. Listen live on Connecticut Public Radio. All YCA episodes are archived here.

Feb. 11 • noon • Yale Cancer Center Distinguished Lecture Series

"Metastasis as a Hereditary Disease Regulated by the Nervous System," presented by Sohail Tavazoie, MD, PhD, director, Black Family Metastasis Center at Rockefeller University and an attending medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Brady Auditorum or on Zoom.

Feb. 16 • 7:30 to 8 p.m. • Yale Cancer Answers radio program

"50 Years of Cancer Progress—Surgical Oncology" with Nita Ahuja. Listen live on Connecticut Public Radio. All YCA episodes are archived here.

Feb. 20 • Noon • Cancer Prevention and Control: Spring 2025 Seminar Series

Gastric Disparities in the U.S. with Chul S. Hyun, MD, PhD, MPH, director, Gastric Cancer Prevention and Screening Program. WWW 208 Conference Room, 333 Cedar St., New Haven. Lunch provided.

Feb. 21 • 1 to 2 pm • YCC Developmental Therapeutics Research Program

“From data reuse, to TCR, BCR, HLA and CNV assessments, to cancer patient population subdivisions” presented by Dr. George Blanck, professor, department of Molecular Medicine, University of South Florida. Talk is in Gairman Room, SHM B201

Feb. 23 • 7:30 to 8 p.m. • Yale Cancer Answers radio program

"Improving long-term outcomes for breast cancer" with Maryam Lustberg. Listen live on Connecticut Public Radio. All YCA episodes are archived here

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Direct Connect's 2024 newsletters can be found online under News at the Yale Cancer Center web site.

DirectConnect

Section of Medical Oncology and Hematology

NCCN News