There is an unbreakable connection from our earliest female faculty members to our most recent recruits. Great pioneers and leaders, such as Paula Pitha-Rowe, M.D., who joined the Cancer Center in 1971 as its first basic scientist, Judy Karp, M.D., who came in 1973 as one of the first three oncology fellows, and Brigid Leventhal, M.D., recruited in 1976 to lead pediatric oncology, were role models and mentors who helped pave the way for our most recent female faculty members.

“These women were significantly productive in their own careers, and they helped shape our Cancer Center, creating an environment that made it better for the women who came after them. They helped us succeed,” says Elizabeth Jaffee, M.D., deputy director of the Kimmel Cancer, the eighth woman to join the Cancer Center, and the 88th woman to earn a professorship at Johns Hopkins.

Major scientific advances typically do not come from one discovery at one moment in time. Instead, they unfold over many years. The women who pioneered technologies and advances against cancer in the early years of our Cancer Center trained many of today’s leaders in cancer medicine, and they helped create a foundation upon which some of the most significant discoveries in the history of the Kimmel Cancer Center were made.

Paula Pitha-Rowe, M.D., was the Cancer Center’s first basic science researcher and among the school of medicine’s first female professors. She was an internationally recognized researcher who helped define the biology of interferon, proteins produced as part of the body’s response to inflammation. She started her laboratory at the Cancer Center in 1971, leading to a major breakthrough with the development of a mechanism to detect interferon-encoding RNA, allowing for the cloning of interferon and paving the way for its clinical use. She also identified viruses that engaged the interferon systems, and started the Cancer Center’s viral oncology program, considered among the best in the world. She was interested in how viruses stimulated the immune system, and her research and guidance helped advance the technologies in cell engineering that allowed our researchers to develop the first therapeutic cancer vaccines. Pitha-Rowe also oversaw the Cancer Center’s training grant, creating the educational environment for basic research and shaping the collaborative, intellectual discourse that remains foundational to our Cancer Center. She died in 2015.

Brigid Leventhal, M.D., was the Kimmel Cancer Center’s first director of pediatric oncology, joining the Kimmel Cancer faculty in 1976. She launched the pediatric oncology inpatient and outpatient clinics. She was a pioneer in the prevention of treatment-related toxicities, working with pediatric radiation oncologist Moody Wharam, M.D., to scale back treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma to prevent side effects, including second cancers later in life. In 1984, she helped found the Pediatric Oncology Group, which focused on collaborative research of pediatric cancers. Leventhal was a founding member and president of the Women in Cancer Research Council of the American Association for Cancer Research. She was honored with the Federal Women’s Award in 1974 and the Outstanding Career Woman of the National Council of Women in 1979.

S. Diane Hayward, Ph.D., joined the Cancer Center faculty in 1976 and focused her research on virus-associated cancers. She twice received Merit awards from the National Cancer Institute for her research on Epstein-Barr virus and was recognized by the International Association for Research on Epstein-Barr Virus and Associated Diseases. Her laboratory studied the ability of Epstein-Barr virus and Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus to manipulate cell signaling pathways. She was the co-director of the Cancer Center’s Viral Oncology Program.

Risa Mann, M.D., came to Johns Hopkins in 1977 as a cancer researcher and pathologist after a fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. She was a member of the National Pathology Panel for Lymphoma clinical studies involved in the classification of lymphomas for the National Cancer Institute. She also researched the association of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) with lymphoma, and helped develop methods to detect EBV in clinical samples. She was a member of the Education Committee of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology. She died in 2015.

Arlene Forastiere, M.D., is an internationally recognized expert in esophageal cancer and in head and neck cancer management. She made major contributions to the development of combined modality therapy, and establishing standards of care for the management of these upper aerodigestive cancers. In 2003, Forastiere reported on a combined treatment she developed that allowed many patients with laryngeal cancers to keep their voices. In an eight-year trial of more than 500 patients, Forastiere showed that by giving chemotherapy and radiation therapy at the same time, many patients were able to retain their larynxes and preserve their voices. Although some of the study participants required laryngectomies, 85% of patients remained disease-free after receiving the combined drug/radiation therapy. She served as chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s Head and Neck Cancer Guidelines Panel.

Georgia Vogelsang, M.D., focused on managing graft-versus-host disease, a major complication of bone marrow transplantation, including harnessing its antitumor potential. Her major contributions have been in mentoring and teaching, with dozens of trainees now in universities around the world.

Nancy Davidson, M.D., is a former director of the Kimmel Cancer Center’s breast cancer program and breast cancer research chair in oncology. She helped decipher the role of the estrogen receptor gene in driving breast cancer and in characterizing pathways by which cancer cells die, with the aim of developing new therapies to target the pathways. She oversaw the development of preclinical studies, including the role of DNA methylation in estrogen and progesterone receptor genes, and was lead investigator on many practice-changing breast cancer clinical trials. She was chair of the Breast Committee of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and co-founder of the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium. She served as president of both the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Association for Cancer Research. Davidson was director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and is currently director of clinical oncology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.

Carol Grieder, Ph.D., the Daniel Nathans Professor and Director of the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, and colleague Elizabeth Blackburn discovered the enzyme telomerase. In 2009, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for the discovery. Grieder’s pioneering research of telomeres, the protective end caps on chromosomes, showed that telomerase restores telomeres and protects them from damage. The connections of telomeres and telomerase to cancer development and progression is a major area of research.

Zaver Bhujwalla, Ph.D., M.Sc., is dedicated to the applications of molecular imaging to understand and target cancer and the tumor microenvironment. She is a fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the American Institute of Biomedical Engineers and the World Molecular Imaging Society. She is director of the Cancer Molecular and Functional Imaging Program. She is also chair of the Career Development of Advisory Committee for the Department of Radiology and Radiological Science.

Cynthia Sears, M.D., is the Bloomberg~Kimmel Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy and leads the Microbiome Program at the Kimmel Cancer Center’s Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. She is an expert on the gut microbiome — the community of microorganisms that aid with digestion, metabolism and immunity, and how certain bacteria can cause inflammation that leads to cancer. Among Sears’ discoveries are colon biofilms made up of bacteria that are able to invade the mucus that protects the cells lining the colon. She is the first to systematically study the potential role of biofilms in the development of colon cancer.

Saraswati Sukumar, Ph.D., is the Barbara Rubenstein Professor of Oncology and former director of the Kimmel Cancer Center’s Breast Cancer Program. Her research has led to a test called the Liquid Biopsy for Breast Cancer Methylation (LBx-BCM). In 4½ hours, it can detect methylation, a type of chemical tag, in one or more of nine genes altered in breast cancers, and may be particularly useful in improving survival in poorer countries. Sukumar has also delivered a method that uses a tiny catheter to deliver anticancer drugs directly into breast ducts, where cancer most often originates.

Elizabeth Jaffee, M.D., is the Dana and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli Professor of Oncology. She is deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, co-director of the Skip Viragh Center for Pancreas Cancer Clinical Research and Patient Care, associate director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, and director of the Convergence Institute. Jaffee is a cancer immunology pioneer, developing immune therapies for pancreatic cancer and identifying immune cell signals that play a role in pancreatic cancer development and progression. She developed the science and technology for therapeutic cancer vaccines to treat pancreatic cancer, including a GMP facility to manufacture the vaccines. She holds six patents for the vaccines, and she and young investigators she is training continue to develop better versions. Jaffee is past president of the American Association for Cancer Research, a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board, chair of President Biden’s Cancer Panel and a co-chair of the Biden Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel. She was the 2023 recipient of the Distinguished Mentoring Award and the 2024 recipient of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Richard V. Smalley Memorial Award.

Judy Karp, M.D., came to the Cancer Center in 1973 as a one of the first three fellows; David Ettinger, M.D., and Skip Trump, M.D., were the other two. She is one of the world’s leading experts on leukemia and complications related to infections resulting from leukemia, and developed clinical trials aimed at preventing infections. Karp and colleague Phillip Burke, M.D., directed the Center’s leukemia program. They developed timed sequential therapy for leukemia, employing short courses of high-dose anticancer drugs specifically timed to be given when cancer cells were reproducing and more sensitive to drug therapy. Their treatment resulted in long-term remissions of 70% of patients treated.

Suzanne Topalian, M.D., is associate director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and a Bloomberg~Kimmel Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy. She joined the Kimmel Cancer faculty in 2006 as director of the melanoma program. Her studies of anti-tumor immunity have provided a foundation for the translational development of cancer vaccines, adoptive T cell transfer and immune modulating monoclonal antibodies. Her current research focuses on manipulating immune checkpoints, such as PD-1, which she helped reveal cancer cells use to shut down the immune response to tumors. The discoveries have cemented immunotherapy as a mode of cancer treatment and transformed the care and survival of people with melanoma skin cancer and lung cancer. She is focused on identifying biomarkers that can predict clinical outcomes. She was named one of Nature’s 10 in 2014, and received the Karnofsky Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2015.

Marikki Laiho, M.D., Ph.D., is the Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Radiation Oncology, director of molecular radiation sciences, and co-director of the Kimmel Cancer Center’s Cancer Chemical and Structural Biology Program. Laiho’s research is aimed at better understanding the mechanisms cancer cells use to survive radiation therapies and developing ways to prevent them from sensing and repairing the damage. She studies a cellular machinery, called POL1, that cancer needs to survive. In her laboratory studies using human cells, new drugs, called small molecule inhibitors, break down this critical activity. She plans to study them in clinical trials.

Martha Zeiger, M.D., gained international prominence at Johns Hopkinsop as a leader in endocrine surgery and thyroid cancer research, where she led a molecular biology laboratory for two decades. She served as president of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons. Currently, she is professor and chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Virginia. Zeiger also served six years in the United States Navy as a general medical officer, commander and surgeon.

Constance Griffin, M.D., directed the Kimmel Cancer Center’s Cancer Risk Assessment Program. Her research was focused on gene alterations in solid tumors and hematologic cancers. Her research of the ALK gene and its role in inflammatory responses helped provide proof that the inflammatory process was linked to cancer initiation. She is particularly interested in better understanding the inherited basis of cancer among families.

Kristy Weber, M.D., joined the Kimmel Cancer Center in 2003 as chief of the Division of Orthopaedic Oncology and director of the sarcoma program. She built a clinical practice and basic science program in sarcoma, studying the molecular mechanisms associated with cancers of the bone. She and her colleagues developed human bone metastasis-derived cell lines and novel targeted therapy strategies for cancers that spread to the bone. In 2006, she received the Kappa Delta National Orthapaedic Research Award for this work. She left the Kimmel Cancer Center to become director of the sarcoma program at the Abramson Cancer Center at Penn Medicine. She was the first woman president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. She also served as president of the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society, and was the inaugural founder and first president of the International Orthopaedic Diversity Alliance, which champions diversity, equity and inclusion in orthopaedics worldwide.

Jennifer Elisseeff, Ph.D., is a biomedical engineer and director of the immunoengineering program at the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. She develops smart materials for the repair and regeneration of tissues. She is investigating her biomaterials in research models as a way to slow the growth of cancer cells. Laboratory studies suggest that these biomaterials may also be able to find and kill cancer cells that have spread from the primary tumor to other parts of the body. Elisseeff is member of the National Academy of Inventors.

Marcia Canto, M.D., M.H.S., came to Johns Hopkins in 1996 as the first woman director of therapeutic endoscopy and endoscopic ultrasonography, quickly achieving international recognition as an academic endoscopist in a male-dominated subspecialty. She is the international authority on Barrett’s esophagus, a risk factor for esophageal cancer, and early detection of pancreatic cancer in high-risk individuals.

Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, M.D., Ph.D., joined the Kimmel Cancer Center in 2003, where she developed a mathematical model that, for the first time, allowed clinicians to quantify the development of pancreatic cancer — the time it takes for a precancerous cell to develop into a cancer. The model revealed an 11- to 18-year window from precancerous lesion to advanced cancer, providing an opportunity to intervene early and potentially cure these cancers with surgery. Her discovery led to the development of technology that rapidly picks out proteins and other biomarkers to help predict and detect pancreatic cancer.

Vered Stearns, M.D., joined the Kimmel Cancer Center in 2002 and was named co-director of the breast cancer program in 2010 and awarded the breast cancer research chair in oncology. She was instrumental in building the multidisciplinary translational team that supported innovative clinical trials. She worked with the Consortium on Breast Cancer Pharmacogenomics, evaluating the predictive role genetic variants play in the safety and efficacy of endocrine therapies. She also advanced research of liquid biopsy — the detection of circulating cancer cell DNA in blood — to help detect breast cancer and guide treatment. In 2023, she was recruited to Cornell University as its director of transitional breast cancer and associate director for clinical affairs at the Meyer Cancer Center, but she remains an adjunct professor at the Kimmel Cancer Center.

Barbara Slusher, Ph.D., M.A.S., is director of Johns Hopkins Drug Discovery and a member of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. She leads the largest integrated drug discovery program at Johns Hopkins, translating basic science discoveries into novel therapies. She co-developed a cancer drug called DON, with Jonathan Powell, M.D., that targets cancer cell metabolism, cutting it off from the nutrients it needs to survive, diverting the nutrients instead to immune cells, which can attack cancer cells. She led the first-ever international consortium of over 130 Academic Drug Discovery Centers to coordinate and enhance university-led drug discovery efforts.

Deborah Armstrong, M.D., is director of the Breast and Ovarian Surveillance Center. She joined the Kimmel Cancer Center in 1993, where she developed a large clinical practice exploring new therapies for breast, ovarian and other gynecologic cancers. She is a national leader in investigational cancer therapeutics, including the revival of a half-century-old method for delivering chemotherapy directly into the abdomen. Her research resulted in renewed interest in the abandoned method, called intraperitoneal chemotherapy. She chaired the Oncology Drugs Advisory Committee for the FDA, received the Ladies Home Journal Breakthrough Achievement Award, the Rosalind Franklin Award for Excellence in Ovarian Cancer Research, the Kimmel Cancer Center’s Director’s Teaching Award in Clinical Science and was two-time recipient of the Johns Hopkins Osler Housestaff Teaching Award.

Nita Ahuja, M.D., came to the Cancer Center in 2003 as the Jacob C. Handelsman Professor of Abdominal Surgery. She discovered that abnormal methylation occurred early in colorectal cancers, and led multiple national clinical trials using epigenetic therapies for solid tumors. In 2018, she was recruited to Yale University as the chair of the Department of Surgery.

Lori Sokoll, Ph.D., a faculty member since 1997, studies ways to improve the clinical use of PSA (prostate specific antigen) tests. She is focused on the measurement, evaluation and clinical applications of cancer biomarkers, with a specific emphasis on tumor markers for prostate cancer.

Linda Smith-Resar, M.D., trained in hematology/oncology, where she became fascinated by the molecular underpinnings of cancer. She was recruited to Johns Hopkins and the Kimmel Cancer Center faculty, and established a basic science laboratory for her pioneering studies on High Mobility Group A1 (HMGA1) proteins in cancer. Her laboratory engineered the first animal model demonstrating that the abnormal expression of HMGA1 causes leukemia. She received Research Scholar Awards from the American Cancer Society and Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and was awarded the David M. Levine Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2015.

Connie Trimble, M.D., is director of the Center for Cervical Dysplasia and built a clinical and basic research program in immune therapies for HPV, with the goal of eradicating disease and preventing cervical cancer without the need for surgery. She established a Cervix Center for women with abnormal Pap tests, and treats more than 1,000 women annually.

Andrea Cox, M.D., Ph.D., is an internationally recognized leader in the studies of immune responses to chronic viral infections, including HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. She was principal investigator on the first prophylactic HCV vaccine trial in high-risk individuals. HCV is a risk factor of liver cancer. Cox is also a faculty adviser for the Association of Women Student M.D.-Ph.Ds.

Allison Klein, Ph.D., directs the National Familial Pancreas Tumor Registry and created a tool, called PancPRO, that computes an individual’s lifetime risk of developing pancreatic cancer. She joined the pancreatic cancer research team in 2004. In collaboration with Scott Kern, M.D., Michael Goggins, M.D., and Ralph Hruban, M.D., she is deciphering the genetic determinants of pancreatic cancer. Klein is also leading a study of 2,000 African Americans, who are 20% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer, to look for genetic differences among 1,000 patients with pancreatic cancer and 1,000 healthy participants to help decipher this cancer disparity.

Christine Gourin, M.D., M.P.H., treats patients with thyroid cancer and other head and neck cancers. Her research interests focus on quality of life, functional outcomes and survival following treatment for head and neck cancer.

Lillie Shockney, M.A.S., University Distinguished Professor of Breast Cancer, has worked at Johns Hopkins since 1983. She is certified as a breast imaging and breast cancer patient navigator. In 2011, she accepted the inaugural role as director of the Kimmel Cancer Center’s survivorship programs. In 2012, she was named program director of the Academy of Oncology Nurse Navigators. Shockney, a cancer survivor, joined forces in 2012 with Kimmel Cancer Center Chief Administrative Officer Terry Langbaum, M.A.S., also a cancer survivor, to launch Work Stride to help people in the workplace diagnosed with cancer. Today, the program reaches more than 300,000 employees and their families across the country. Langbaum died in 2019.

Tian-Li Wang, Ph.D., is director of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory of Female Reproductive Cancer and a member of the Kimmel Cancer Center’s Breast Cancer and Women’s Malignancies Program.

Claire Snyder, M.H.S., Ph.D., is focused on quality of cancer care with an emphasis on quality of life for people with cancer and coordination of cancer care between cancer specialists and primary care providers. Among her interventions are patient questionnaires that help clinicians identify and address quality of life issues. She developed the PatientViewpoint webtool to link questionnaire responses with patients’ electronic medical records. Snyder has conducted multiple studies using large databases to examine quality of care for cancer survivors, including preventive and primary care, underlying health conditions and cancer follow-up.

Mary Armanios, M.D., studies telomere dysfunction and is director of the Telomere Center, which is at the forefront of individualized care for patients and families affected by telomere disorders. Telomeres are protective endcaps on chromosomes. Armanios defines approaches to surveillance, diagnosis and treatment of telomere-related diseases, including cancer, bone marrow failure/aplastic anemia, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and liver cirrhosis. Armanios is also associate director of cancer research career enhancement. 

Julie Brahmer, M.D., M.Sc., is co-director of the Cancer Immunology Program and director of the Thoracic Oncology Program. She led clinical trials of gene-targeted drug therapies and immunotherapy for lung cancer and mesothelioma, including practice-changing trials of anti-PD-1 therapies. Brahmer is co-principal investigator on the Johns Hopkins Clinical Trials Network. She is one of the founding board members for the National Lung Cancer Partnership and is on the medical advisory board of the Lung Cancer Research Fund and the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation.

Akila Viswanathan is director of the Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences. She is a leading expert in the use of image-guided brachytherapy for gynecologic cancers, and was the first in the U.S. to use real-time magnetic resonance-guided interstitial brachytherapy for the treatment of gynecologic cancers.

Tamara Lotan, M.D., is a genitourinary cancer expert. Her research described a novel mechanism of tumor formation in kidney cancers driven by overexpression of one gene, the mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) signaling pathway, and loss of expression of another gene, the tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) tumor suppressor gene. The findings point to potential therapeutic targets for some of the most aggressive renal cell cancers. She is also a researcher on the RESPOND study, the first large-scale, multi-institutional study of African American men with prostate cancer to better understand why they are at higher risk for developing more aggressive forms of the disease and are more likely to die from it. The study will be the first in any racial group to fully integrate genetic alterations with gene expression data, social determinants of health and markers of tumor aggression.

Dipali Sharma, Ph.D., focuses her research on the molecular links between obesity and breast cancer. She discovered a molecule produced by fat cells, called leptin, that canceled out the drug tamoxifen’s ability to prevent breast cancer in laboratory studies. She is also studying a natural compound derived from magnolia trees, called honokiol, known to have cancer-protective properties. Sharma was named the 2023 Fetting Fund for Breast Cancer Prevention Scholar.

Ashani Weeraratna, Ph.D., is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and the E.V. McCollum Professor and Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is also co-director of the Kimmel Cancer Center Cancer Invasion and Metastasis Program. She is among the first to study and uncover age-related differences in how people respond to cancer therapy. The research earned her recognition by the National Cancer Institute during its commemoration of the National Cancer Act 50th anniversary. Weeraratna researches melanoma skin cancer, and has led public health initiatives to install sunblock dispensers in public spaces and to educate children about the dangers of sun exposure. She is also an advocate for the contributions of immigrant scientists and is a mentor for junior faculty members, women and people of color in science. In 2021, she was among seven scientists appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board.

Jaishiri Blakely, M.D., is the Marjorie Bloomberg Tiven Professor of Neurofibromatosis in Neurology, Oncology and Neurosurgery. Her clinical research is focused on the development of clinical trials for nervous system tumors.

Janis Taube, M.D., M.Sc., is director of the Division of Dermatopathology, co-director of the Tumor Microenvironment Laboratory at the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, and co-director of the Mark Foundation for Advanced Genomics and Imaging. Her research is focused on identifying biomarkers that predict response to immunotherapy. She and collaborator Alexander Szalay, Ph.D., developed AstroPath, a comprehensive platform for imaging and mapping microscopic sections of tumors to guide precision immunotherapies for cancer.

Anne Marie Lennon, M.B.B.Ch., Ph.D., is director of the Multidisciplinary Pancreatic Cyst Clinic. She specializes in the management of patients with pancreatic cysts and precancerous lesions. Collaborating with the Kimmel Cancer Center Ludwig Center laboratory, directed by Bert Vogelstein, M.D., and Kenneth Kinzler, Ph.D., she helped developed a test called CompCyst, a laboratory test that uses artificial intelligence tools and has the potential to more accurately sort out which people with pancreatic cysts will go on to develop pancreatic cancers. Only a small fraction of cysts progress to cancer. The ability to distinguish benign cysts from cancerous cysts would allow clinicians to identify patients who will not require follow-up and those who will need long-term follow-up or immediate surgical resection.

Michele Rudek, Pharm.D., Ph.D., is director of the Kimmel Cancer Center’s Analytical Pharmacology Shared Resource, leading a team that conducts tests to see how promising new drugs travel through the body, are absorbed, distributed and metabolized, and what effect they have on cancer cells. Collaborating with Michael Carducci, M.D., they test drugs being used in the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Experimental Clinical Trials Network and support the NCI’s Adult Brain Tumor Consortium and AIDS Malignancy Consortium. Rudek also researches and manages drug interactions among people with cancer who have underlying health conditions, such as liver or other organ dysfunction, to ensure they can safely receive anticancer drugs. She was the first nonphysician recipient of the NCI’s Michaele Christian Oncology Development and Lectureship Award.

Carole Fakhry, M.D., M.P.H., is the Charles W. Cummings, M.D., Professor of Otolaryngology and Director of the Head and Neck Cancer Center. She was recently appointed the associate dean for clinical affairs. She will work collaboratively to help develop and implement strategies for the Clinical Practice Association to help ensure patient-centered, safe and efficient care delivery. Fakhry is an internationally recognized expert in head and neck cancer, and her research has been pivotal to advancing the understanding of these cancers and helped define a distinct type of head and neck cancer, with the human papillomavirus (HPV) as a biomarker, in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines. She also oversaw the development, implementation and growth of the clinical trials infrastructure and portfolio, in collaboration with the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

Nilofer Azad, M.D., is director of the Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics Program and the Colorectal Cancer Research Center of Excellence. Her research is aimed at developing new drug combinations for patients with advanced cancer. She leads clinical trials to explore how epigenetic therapies target chemical alterations to genes that promote cancer development and growth. She is the principal investigator for Johns Hopkins on the Stand Up to Cancer Colorectal Cancer Dream Team and a member of the Epigenetics Dream Team, leading the GI cancer initiatives. She is a member of the National Cancer Institute Colon Cancer Task Force and its Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (MATCH) Agents and Genes Working Group, the largest trial of precision, or individualized, medicine in the country. Recently, she was appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board

Dung Le, M.D., is the Bloomberg~Kimmel Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy. She led the clinical trials that established a genetic defect called mismatch repair deficiency as a predictor of response to immunotherapy with drugs that block the PD-1 immune checkpoint. The findings led to a historic 2017 FDA approval of the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab across all cancer types for any cancer that contains the mismatch repair genetic defect. Li, who is a gastrointestinal cancer expert, also developed a low-dose, five-drug combination that has proven effective against pancreatic cancer.

Elizabeth Platz, Sc.D., M.P.H., is co-director of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program and is the Martin D. Abeloff Scholar in Cancer Prevention. A major focus of her research is the use of molecular and genetic epidemiology approaches to understand the mechanisms underlying prostate incidence and progression. She conducts her work with an eye toward translation of findings into prevention and treatment strategies. She is at the forefront of population research on the role of inflammation, a target for prevention, in the development of prostate cancer, and on telomere length as a prognostic marker for poor outcomes after treatment for prostate cancer. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was appointed to the Maryland State Council on Cancer Control and is a steering committee member and former chair of the Maryland Cancer Collaborative.

Louise Grochow, M.D., was a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and one of the Cancer Center’s first medical oncologists. She helped launch its drug discovery program and pioneered advances against solid tumors, particularly colorectal cancer.

Cindy Schwartz, M.D., was a Kimmel Cancer Center pediatric oncologist with a particular interest in survivorship. She contacted nearly 1,000 former pediatric patients successfully treated at the Kimmel Cancer to learn about their experiences with side effects of cancer therapy, such as infertility and organ damage. The information she accumulated was used to create a large statistical database to help predict and manage late effects of cancer therapy. Currently, she is medical director of hematology/oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Nancy Shaper, Ph.D., researched glyconjugates, a major class of molecules located on the cell surface, and how they interacted with proteins. Her work was foundational to the basic understanding of molecular genetics and the quest for gene alterations associated with cancer development.

Heather Symons, M.D., M.H.S., is clinical director of the Pediatric Oncology Blood and Marrow Transplant Program. With Kimmel Cancer Center-pioneered science that made haploidentical, or half-matched, bone marrow transplants safe and effective, Symons began performing about 50 per year in pediatric patients. The procedure became so safe, about one-third of the transplants were in pediatric patients with noncancer immune and genetic disorders. She and her team perform about 50 bone marrow transplant per year, and about 60% of them are with half-matched donors. Symons is also pairing donor lymphocytes (white blood cells that activate the body’s immune system) with chemotherapy to determine if this combination will “awaken” patients’ immune systems to the danger of existing cancer cells and, in turn, elicit an immune response.

Kala Visvanathan, M.D., M.H.S., is director of the Clinical Cancer Genetics and Prevention Service and is the inaugural Fetting Fund for Breast Cancer Prevention Scholar. She is an expert in breast cancer prevention in diverse populations. Her research includes predicting the risk of invasive cancer among women with atypical hyperplasia, evaluation of screening in high-risk women, and studying benefits of tamoxifen in individuals who are overweight or obese. There is a panel of genes experts look for in breast cancer to tailor early detection and preventive care, and Visvanathan is developing short, patient-driven, culturally sensitive videos to help patients and families understand the importance of genetic testing.

Eva Zinreich, M.D., was one of the Kimmel Cancer Center’s first radiation oncologists, and helped build the program.