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For more information, contact:<br />
Frank DeSanto, <strong>SWOG</strong><br />
fdesanto@umich.edu<br />
(734) 998-0114<br />
For immediate release<br />
Four oncology researchers chosen for 2012 <strong>SWOG</strong> Young Investigators training program<br />
Intensive three-day workshop gives early career cancer researchers tools to design and<br />
lead large-scale studies across NCI National Clinical Trials Network.<br />
ANN ARBOR, MICH. – Four of the most promising early career researchers in oncology have been<br />
accepted to the 2012 <strong>SWOG</strong> Young Investigator Training Course, to be held September 10 – 12<br />
in Seattle.<br />
Each fall, four or five successful applicants attend this nationally acclaimed intensive three-day<br />
workshop to learn how to develop and conduct multi-site clinical trials within the National Cancer<br />
Institute’s (NCI’s) cooperative group network, of which <strong>SWOG</strong> is a member.<br />
To date this workshop has provided mentorship and career support to more than 60<br />
researchers. With detailed instruction in protocol development, trial management, and statistical<br />
analysis, the course builds a cohort of trained clinical trial researchers with a thorough<br />
understanding of cooperative group procedures and the ability to efficiently plan and execute<br />
high-priority studies that in some cases might enroll thousands of patients at hundreds of<br />
treatment sites internationally.<br />
Each Young Investigator presents a research proposal as part of the application process, and<br />
that proposal is refined and fleshed out during the workshop. More than 30 of the proposals<br />
advanced in previous workshops have since been launched as successful studies with National<br />
Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.<br />
The 2012 <strong>SWOG</strong> Young Investigators are introduced below, with brief descriptions of their<br />
proposals.<br />
Christopher Lieu, M.D., Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Cancer Center<br />
Christopher Lieu holds an M.D. from Wake Forest University and completed his internship and<br />
residency at the University of Colorado Denver, where he also served as chief resident. After<br />
completing a fellowship in medical oncology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, he returned to<br />
the University of Colorado to join the faculty of the Division of Medical Oncology.<br />
Among his honors and awards, Lieu has received a Young Investigators Award from the<br />
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) to support his research on the role of bFGF in<br />
resistance to anti-VEGF therapy, and a Merit Award from the Conquer Cancer Foundation. He<br />
has also been honored with the Paul Calabresi Career Development Award for Clinical<br />
Oncology.<br />
Lieu is currently principal investigator on a phase I trial of the agent MM-151 and has served as<br />
co-PI on a phase II study of irinotecan plus brivanib in metastatic colorectal cancer.
Four chosen for 2012 <strong>SWOG</strong> Young Investigators workshop p. 2 of 3<br />
As his Young Investigator Training Course project, Lieu proposes developing a phase II trial<br />
comparing TAK-733 (a MEK inhibitor) to standard chemotherapy in patients with KRAS mutant,<br />
PI3K wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer.<br />
William Lowrance, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor, University of Utah Huntsman<br />
Cancer Institute<br />
William Lowrance earned an M.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina and served his<br />
urology residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He then completed a urologic<br />
oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he served as<br />
administrative chief fellow, and earned an M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health.<br />
Honors and awards include a best poster recognition from the American Urological Association<br />
2012 Annual Meeting (where he was a contributor on seven poster presentations) and an<br />
MSKCC Annual Clinical Research Award.<br />
Lowrance holds a Cancer Control and Population Sciences Pilot Project Award as principal<br />
investigator for a population-based study of prostate cancer presentation, treatment patterns,<br />
and genetic variants. He has also served as co-investigator on an NIH/NCI Challenge Grant<br />
supported project comparing surgical treatment options and outcomes for men with localized<br />
prostate cancer.<br />
At <strong>SWOG</strong>’s Young Investigator Training Course, Lowrance will refine a proposal for a phase II<br />
trial of dutasteride with or without intermittent MDV3100 (an androgen receptor antagonist) to<br />
extend time to progression for men with adenocarcinoma of the prostate.<br />
Jatin Shah, M.D., Assistant Professor, MD Anderson Cancer Center<br />
Jatin Shah earned his M.D. from The Ohio State University, completed his internship and<br />
residency in internal medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, and a fellowship in hematology/oncology<br />
at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.<br />
His honors include an Outstanding Research Fellowship from the University of Alabama at<br />
Birmingham and a Young Investigator Award from the Southern Society of Clinical Investigation.<br />
Shah’s research focus is in new drug development, and he has been funded as principal<br />
investigator on half a dozen past phase I or phase I/II clinical trials of multiple myeloma<br />
treatments, including multiple investigator-initiated trials. He is currently a co-investigator on an<br />
NIH P01 grant looking at the mechanisms behind multiple myeloma’s symptoms and on the<br />
multiple myeloma Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant at the MD<br />
Anderson Cancer Center.<br />
With his application for the Young Investigator Training Course, he proposes a phase III trial of<br />
lenalidomide with and without the oral proteasome inhibitor MLN9708 as maintenance therapy<br />
for multiple myeloma patients who have undergone an autologous stem cell transplant.<br />
William Nassib William, Jr., M.D., Assistant Professor, MD Anderson Cancer Center<br />
William N. William earned his M.D. from the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Sao<br />
Paulo in Brazil, where he also served his residency. He completed a clinical fellowship in<br />
oncology at the Hospital Sirio-Libanes in Sao Paulo and an observership, a post-doctoral<br />
fellowship, and a clinical fellowship – all in oncology – at the MD Anderson Cancer Center,<br />
where he is now chief of the Head and Neck Section in the Department of Thoracic/Head and<br />
Neck Medical Oncology.
Four chosen for 2012 <strong>SWOG</strong> Young Investigators workshop p. 3 of 3<br />
His honors and awards include a Young Investigator Award from the American Society of<br />
Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and a Career Development Award from the Conquer Cancer<br />
Foundation for a project using non-coding RNAs as predictive markers of benefit from EGFRtargeted<br />
therapies in head and neck carcinomas.<br />
He has served as co-investigator on several grant-funded trials of cancer chemopreventive<br />
agents, including an NCI-supported study of the use of erlotinib for the prevention of oral<br />
cancer. William was lead clinical investigator for a study of pre-operative cetuximab and/or<br />
IMC-A12 in head and neck carcinoma and is principal investigator of a study of the<br />
pharmacokinetics of cetuximab and carboplatin in patients with head and neck carcinoma.<br />
With his Young Investigator application he has proposed a randomized phase II study of<br />
neoadjuvant cisplatin and docetaxel with or without nintedanib (a VEGFR inhibitor) for<br />
resectable non-small cell lung cancer.<br />
<strong>SWOG</strong> is one of the five cooperative groups within the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s)<br />
National Clinical Trials Network. The group designs and conducts multidisciplinary clinical trials<br />
to improve the practice of medicine in preventing, detecting, and treating cancer, and to<br />
enhance the quality of life for cancer survivors. The more than 4,000 researchers in the group’s<br />
network practice at more than 500 institutions, including 22 of the NCI-designated cancer<br />
centers as well as cancer centers in almost a dozen other countries. Formerly the Southwest<br />
Oncology Group, <strong>SWOG</strong> is headquartered at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (734-998-<br />
7140) and has an operations office in San Antonio and a statistical center in Seattle. Learn<br />
more at swog.org.<br />
<strong>SWOG</strong> – Leading cancer research. Together.