Scientific Advisors - Cancer
Manuel Hidalgo, MD, PhD
Manuel Hidalgo, M.D., Ph.D., a leading physician-scientist specializing in pancreatic cancer and drug development, is the Chief of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology and E. Hugh Luckey Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine/New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr Hidalgo is also Associate Director for Clinical Services at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center.
His research has included development of several anti-cancer drugs including erlotinib, nab-paclitaxel and temsirolimus. Dr. Hidalgo received his M.D. from the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain in 1992, and Ph.D. from University Autonoma of Madrid in 1997. He trained in medicine and medical oncology at Hospital “12 de Octubre” in Madrid and at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas.
He also completed a fellowship program in anticancer drug development at the Institute of Drug Development in San Antonio. Prior to this position, he served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. In 2001, Dr. Hidalgo become the Director of the Gastrointestinal Oncology Program at the Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University, where he also held the title of Associate Professor of Oncology. Dr. Hidalgo became Director of the Clinical Research Program at the Spanish National Cancer Center in 2009 and Vice Director of Translational Research in 2011.
In 2015, he became the Chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology and Director of the Rosenberg Clinical Cancer Center at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. During his time at Beth Israel, Dr. Hidalgo served as the Theodore W. and Evelyn G. Berenson Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Manuel Hidalgo, MD, PhD
Weill Cornell Medicine
Sui Huang, MD, PhD
Dr. Huang is a professor at the Institute of Systems Biology (ISB), a Seattle-based biomedical research organization that leads the transformation of medicine enabled by genomics and big data. An overarching theme of the Huang Lab at ISB is the interface between normal cell development and cancer development, analyzed through the formal concepts of gene networks and cell population dynamics. In 2019, Dr. Huang was announced as a member of a global research team funded with a $25 million grant from Cancer Research UK. As part of this research, the Huang Lab is in charge of large-scale RNAseq analysis at single-cell resolution that systematically profiles patient tumors to better understand how chronic inflammation causes cancer and to find novel ways of treating cancers by modulating the inflammatory tumor tissue.
Dr. Huang obtained his doctorates in medicine and molecular biology at the University of Zurich in 1995. After completing postdoctoral training in cancer biology, he joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School in Boston and subsequently moved to the University of Calgary to work alongside Stuart Kauffman on gene regulatory networks and cancer differentiation. He joined ISB in 2011, where his laboratory combines single-cell omics technologies and theory of non-linear dynamical systems to dissect and control the fundamental tendency of tumor to progress.
Dr. Huang is co-author of “A model for the intrinsic limit of cancer therapy: Duality of treatment-induced cell death and treatment-induced stemness”, PLoS Comput Biol 2022 Vol. 18 and sole author of “The logic of cancer treatment: Why it is so hard to cure cancer - Treatment-induced progression, hyper-progression and the Nietzsche effect” in Rethinking Cancer: A New Paradigm for the Post-genomics Era edited by B. Strauss, M. Bertolaso, I. Ernberg and M. J. Bissell. MIT Press 2021.
Sui Huang, MD, PhD
Institute for Systems Biology
Pat LoRusso, DO
Pat LoRusso brings more than 25 years of expertise in medical oncology, drug development, and early phase clinical trials. Prior to her Yale appointment, she served in numerous leadership roles at Wayne State University’s Barbara Karmanos Cancer Institute, most recently as director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program and of the Eisenberg Center for Experimental Therapeutics.
Pat LoRusso, DO
Yale School of Medicine
Eileen O’Reilly, MD
Dr. Eileen M. O’Reilly holds the Winthrop Rockefeller Endowed Chair in Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). She serves as the Section Head for Hepatopancreaticobiliary/ Neuroendocrine Cancers, Gastrointestinal Oncology Service, Co-Director for Medical Initiatives at the David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer and is an Attending Physician and Member at MSK and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Dr. O’Reilly received her medical degree at Trinity College (Dublin University) in Ireland. She completed her residency training in Ireland and Fellowship training at MSK. Dr. O’Reilly has pancreatic and hepatobiliary malignancies as the major focus of her research and clinical activities. Research directions include integration of molecular and genetic-based therapies for the treatment of pancreas cancer along with development of adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapies and identification of biomarkers for therapy selection. Dr. O’Reilly teaches and mentors junior faculty, oncology fellows, residents and medical/other students and has numerous teaching and other awards.
Dr. O’Reilly is the Principal Investigator of multiple trials in pancreas cancer and has authored/co-authored > 300 articles, editorials and book chapters.
Dr. O’Reilly’s other MSK responsibilities include: Chair of the Human Subjects Research Program (HRPP), Chair of the Institutional Review & Privacy Board (IRB) and Chair of the Continuing Medical Education (CME) committee.
Nationally Dr. O’Reilly is Co-Chair of the NCI Alliance Co-Operative Group Gastrointestinal Cancers Committee and serves on the NCI Gastrointestinal Cancers Steering Committee (GISC), Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Guidelines Committee and the Board of the National Pancreas Foundation.
Eileen O’Reilly, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center
Dipak Panigrahy, MD
Cancer Pharmacology Lead
Dr. Panigrahy is a leading expert in Resolvin pharmacology in cancer. He is an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a teaching hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School. His laboratory, which is located in the Center for Vascular Biology Research at BIDMC, has deep expertise in multiple animal models of cancer including pancreatic cancer.
From 1996 to 2008, Dr. Panigrahy led angiogenesis and cancer animal modeling in the Judah Folkman laboratory. The Panigrahy Laboratory has won 50+ awards for its studies on lipid autacoids in cancer.
Dr. Panigrahy was awarded the 2015 ASIP Cotran Early Investigator Award and a Young Investigator Award in 2015 at the 14th International Conference on Bioactive Lipids in Cancer, Inflammation, and Related Diseases (Budapest, Hungary). Dr. Panigrahy’s seminal research regarding apoptosis in cancer and tumor dormancy escape provides the mechanistic foundation for our understanding of Resolvin pharmacology in cancer. In collaboration with the Serhan Laboratory, Dr. Panigrahy conducted the initial proof-of-concept studies for RvE1 in cancer.
Dipak Panigrahy, MD
Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center
David Parkinson, MD
Dr. Parkinson has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of ESSA Pharma Inc. since January 2016, and as a Director of the company since June 2015. Prior to joining ESSA he had been a Venture Partner at New Enterprise Associates, Inc. From 2007 until 2012, Dr. Parkinson served as President and CEO of Nodality, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the biological characterization of signaling pathways in patients with malignancy. Until October 2007 he was SVP, Oncology Research and Development at Biogen Idec, where he oversaw all oncology discovery research efforts and the development of the oncology pipeline. Previously he had served as VP, Oncology Development, at Amgen and VP, Global Clinical Oncology Development, at Novartis. In those roles he oversaw the successful clinical development of a series of cancer therapeutics, including Gleevec, Zometa, Femara, and Vectibix. Dr. Parkinson worked at the National Cancer Institute from 1990 to 1997, serving as Chief of the Investigational Drug Branch and then as Acting Associate Director of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP).
He is a past Chairman of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Biologics Advisory Committee, a past member of the FDA Science Board, and is a recipient of the FDA’s Cody Medal. He is a past editor of the Journal of Immunotherapy and past president of the Society of Biological Therapy. He has served on the National Cancer Policy Forum of the Institute of Medicine and is a past co-chair of the Cancer Steering Committee of the NIH Foundation Biomarkers Consortium. A past Board Director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, he currently serves as a Board Director for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. He served as Chairperson of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Finance and Audit Committee for 15 years and is a previous elected Board Director of AACR. Dr. Parkinson was a Director of Facet Biotech, Inc., until the acquisition by Abbott Pharmaceuticals, and was a Director of Ambit Biosciences until the acquisition by Daiichi Sankyo. He was also previously a Director at Threshold Pharmaceuticals and Cerulean Pharmaceuticals. He currently serves as Director on the Boards of CTI Biopharma, Inc (CTIC), 3SBio Inc (1530.HK) and is a Co-Founder and Director of Refuge Biotech, Inc. He has held academic positions both at Tufts and at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications.
David Parkinson, MD
ESSA Pharma
Erin Schenk, MD, PhD
Dr. Erin Schenk is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She received her MD and PhD from the Mayo Clinic Medical Scientist Training Program in Rochester, Minnesota. Her thesis work focused on the adaptive immune response to cancer antigens. She completed her Internal Medicine residency and Hematology/Oncology fellowship at Mayo Clinic with a continued focus in tumor immunology through the Clinician-Investigator Training Program. Dr. Schenk joined the Thoracic Oncology group at the University of Colorado as a physician scientist in 2018. Dr. Schenk has an active clinical practice as a medical oncologist focused on patients with lung cancer and leads multiple clinical trials investigating novel immunotherapy approaches for patients with lung cancer. The Schenk Lab is part of the Thoracic Oncology Research Initiative at the University of Colorado and investigates the lung cancer tumor microenvironment as a contributor to lung cancer progression and treatment resistance.
Erin Schenk, MD, PhD
University of Colorado
School of Medicine
Mario Sznol, MD
Dr. Mario Sznol is a Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology), Clinical Research Leader (Melanoma Program), and Co-Leader of Cancer Immunology at the Yale Cancer Center. Dr. Sznol, formerly with the National Cancer Institute, has an international reputation in cancer drug development. Dr. Sznol's expertise and experience is in cancer immunotherapy, drug development for cancer, and treatment of patients with melanoma and renal cell carcinoma. He is working to expand the opportunities for clinical trials at the Yale Cancer Center, particularly those focusing on immunotherapy and novel agents.
Mario Sznol, MD
Yale School of Medicine
Chris Takimoto, MD, PhD, FACP
Dr. Takimoto is the Chief Medical Officer of IGM Biosciences. Dr. Takimoto has 30 years of experience in cancer research and development, most recently as Senior Vice President, Oncology, Gilead Sciences. Prior to Gilead, Dr. Takimoto was Chief Medical Officer of Forty Seven, a biotechnology company formed out of Stanford University and acquired by Gilead Sciences in 2020.
Dr. Takimoto has also served as Vice President of Experimental Medicine Early Development, Oncology Therapeutic Area for Janssen Research and Development. Prior to Janssen, Dr. Takimoto was Senior Director of Translational Medicine of Ortho Biotech Oncology Research and Development. He has over thirty years of experience in industry and academia, including academic positions at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the National Cancer Institute, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
He has also served as a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Public Health Service. Dr. Takimoto received a B.S. in Chemistry from Stanford University, a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Yale University, and an M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine.
Chris Takimoto, MD, PhD, FACP
IGM Biosciences