Editor-in-Chief

Julio E. Celis

Professor and Director, Institute of Cancer Biology, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark

Julio E. Celis is Professor and Director of the Institute of Cancer Biology at the Danish Cancer Society and is generally recognized as one of the founding fathers of proteomics. Julio Celis' group in Aarhus introduced the use of protein identification techniques to map HeLa cell proteins and developed the first protein database in 1981. In the early 1980s, the group also laid out the foundations for proteomics by annotating the databases with information gathered from applications to problems in cell biology, in particular cell proliferation and transformation. Together with J. Vandekerckhove he later introduced the use of large scale protein identification using microsequencing. Celis' group in Copenhagen has pioneered the use of proteomics to the analysis of bladder and breast cancer and introduced the concept of discovery-driven translational cancer research. Julio Celis is currently Chairman, Policy Committee at the European CanCer Organisation (ECCO), President-elect of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR), Treasurer of the Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI) and Member of the FP7 Advisory Group on Health Research.

Website: http://proteomics.cancer.dk/
e-mail: jec@cancer.dk

Articles by this author.

José Moreira

Managing Editor, Molecular Oncology

José Moreira studied Biochemistry at O'Porto University and obtained a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Copenhagen based on his thesis work on chromatin-mediated transcriptional regulation of genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Dr. Moreira's early research was focused on the regulatory constraints that chromatin structure imposes on the various cellular processes, and during that period he made significant contributions to our understanding of the interplay between chromatin modulation and transcriptional regulation. In 1999 he took an industrial postdoctoral fellow position with Active Biotech Research AB (Lund, Sweden) a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative immunotherapy's for several diseases, including cancer.

Since 2002, Dr. Moreira has been a Senior Scientist at the Department of Proteomics in Cancer, Institute of Cancer Biology, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, where he has devoted his research efforts to a global breast cancer project (Danish Center for Translational Breast Cancer Research- DCTB) aimed at identifying biomarkers and therapeutic markers for breast cancer.

Website: http://www.molecularoncology.org

Editorial Board

Dr. Kari Alitalo

Research Professor of the Finnish Academy of Sciences
Director of the Molecular/Cancer Biology Program, University of Helsinki, Finland

Dr Kari Alitalo (born 1952) is a tenured Research Professor of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and the Director of the Molecular/Cancer Biology Program and Centre of Excellence in the University of Helsinki, Finland. He obtained an M.D. (1977) and a Ph.D. (1980) from the University of Helsinki. During his postdoctoral period in 1982-1983 Dr. Alitalo worked with Drs. J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus in San Francisco. Dr. Alitalo has discovered several novel receptor tyrosine kinases, important in particular in endothelial cells. He has shown that some of these receptors and their ligands play important roles in tumor angiogenesis. Among the original findings are the cloning and characterisation of fibroblast growth factor receptor-4, the C-terminal Src tyrosine kinase and the first endothelial specific receptor tyrosine kinase, Tie, as well as VEGFR-3 and the cloning and characterization of VEGF-B in collaboration with Dr. Ulf Eriksson and determination of VEGFR-1 and NP-1 as its receptors. A significant achievement by Dr. Alitalo was the isolation, cloning and characterization of the first lymphangiogenic growth factor VEGF-C and isolation of lymphatic endothelial cells, opening up the lymphatic vascular system to molecular analysis after over a hundred years of descriptive pathology. He has also been central in the characterization of VEGF-B, VEGF-C and VEGF-D receptors and signal transduction pathways and the function of VEGFR-3, showing that this receptor is required for angiogenesis and later in lymphangiogenesis in embryos. He has devised molecular therapies for lymphedema that are now entering clinical trials. He furthermore demonstrated that VEGF-C is overexpressed in tumors and its receptor VEGFR-3 is upregulated in angiogenic tumor vasculature. His studies led to the demonstration of VEGF-C associated tumor lymphangiogenesis, intralymphatic tumor growth, and VEGF-C association with tumor metastasis and its inhibition by blocking the VEGFR-3 signal transduction pathway. Dr. Alitalo has published more than 330 research articles and 100 reviews, and has received several scientific awards, including Leopold Griffuel Prize (2003), Eric K Fernström Foundation's Nordic Prize (2005) and Louis-Jeantet Prize For Medicine (2006).

Website: http://www.helsinki.fi/university/
e-mail: Kari.Alitalo@Helsinki.Fi

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Mariano Barbacid, PhD

Director, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Madrid, Spain

Mariano Barbacid is Director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), a new institute in Madrid that he helped to put together in the late 90's, after spending 23 years in the US. In 1982, he led one of three groups that isolated the first human oncogene (H-Ras) and unveiled its mechanism of activation. Other contributions of special relevance include the identification in 1991 of the Trk family of tyrosine protein kinases –previously discovered in his group in the mid 80's– as the receptors for the NGF family of neurotrophic factors. Since his return to Spain, the Barbacid lab has concentrated on designing new animal models that closely recapitulate the natural history of human cancers and in studying the role of Cdks in the regulation of the cell cycle. This work has challenged the classical model of the mammalian cell cycle by demonstrating that the G1/S cyclin-dependent kinases are dispensable for cell division. The relevance of his work has been recognised by several awards, including the Young Investigator Award of the American Association of Cancer Research (USA, 1986), Steiner Prize (Switzerland, 1988), Ipsen Prize (France, 1994) and the Brupbaher Cancer Research Prize (Switzerland, 2005). He became an Associate Member of EMBO in 1996.

Website: http://www.cnio.es
e-mail: barbacid@cnio.es

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Jiri Bartek, MD, PhD

Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark

Jiri Bartek is the Head of the Department of Cell Cycle and Cancer, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Genotoxic Research, at the Institute of Cancer Biology, Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen, EMBO member and honorary Professor at the Universities of Aarhus and Copenhagen. After obtaining his MD and PhD degrees at the Palacky University in Olomouc and the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Prague, respectively, he worked at several European cancer institutes including the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories in London and German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, before taking up his present position in Copenhagen. His main research interests include molecular mechanisms of mammalian cell cycle control, coordination of DNA damage signaling with cell cycle checkpoints and DNA repair pathways, as well as the roles of these mechanisms as tumorigenesis barriers and their defects during cancer development.

Website: url
e-mail: jb@cancer.dk

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Boris C. Bastian, MD

Associate Professor, Dermatology and Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

Dr. Boris Bastian is Associate Professor in the Departments of Dermatology and Pathology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Prior to completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Cancer Genetics Program of the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr. Bastian was an attending physician at the Department of Dermatology at the University of Würzburg, Germany, where he completed his dermatology residency. Dr. Bastian received his medical training from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany where he completed his thesis in 1989, and did a post-doctoral fellowship in hematology. He joined UCSF in 1999.

Dr. Bastian's research interest is focused on the molecular genetics of melanocytic neoplasms with a particular focus on the discovery on genetic alterations useful for diagnosis, classification, and therapy. Together with his colleagues he has demonstrated that melanoma is comprised of several, genetically distinct subtypes and can be distinguished from benign melanocytic lesions by characteristic genetic alterations. In addition to his research activities Dr. Bastian is a faculty member of the UCSF Dermatopathology Service and participates in the histopathological and molecular diagnostics of skin diseases. Dr. Bastian has authored more than 80 scientific publications and has received several awards for his research.

Website: http://cancer.ucsf.edu/
e-mail: bastian@cc.ucsf.edu

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Filippo Belardelli

Director of Research/Director of Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS, Rome), Italy

Filippo Belardelli (FB) is Director of Research at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS, Rome) where he serves as Director of the Dept. of Cell Biology and Neurosciences. FB worked at the Institute de Recherches Scientifiques sur le Cancer in Paris (Laboratory of Dr. I. Gresser). In 1996, he worked at Dept. of Immunology of The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, CA). His main areas of research include: i) role of interferons and other cytokines in the pathogenesis and control of viral infections and in the control of tumor growth; ii) development of SCID mouse models for AIDS research; iii) gene therapy of cancer; iv) cancer vaccines; v) biology of dendritic cells and development of dendritic cell-based vaccines for HIV infection and cancer; v) immunotherapy of cancer and of infectious diseases. FB served as coordinator of European projects in the fields of infectious diseases and cancer, organized the 1st European meeting on Cancer Vaccines (Rome, 1998), the International Meeting on Cytokines as Natural Adjuvants (Rome, 2002), International Meeting on Cancer Vaccines (Rome, 2004) and International Meeting on Immunotherapy of Cancer: Challenges and Needs (Rome, 2006)

Website: http://www.iss.it
e-mail: belard@iss.it

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Anton Berns

Director of Research, The Netherlands Cancer Institute. Professor of Experimental Genetics of Inherited Diseases, University of Amsterdam.

Anton Berns studied biochemistry at the University of Nijmegen and received his Masters degree in 1969 and his PhD in 1972 from that same University. He did his postdoctoral training in the group of Rudolf Jaenisch at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA, where he studied the role of retroviruses in causing lymphomas in mice. In 1976 he returned to the University of Nijmegen where he became junior staff member. His group explored proviral insertional mutagenesis as a means to identify new oncogenes. In 1985 he was appointed as staff scientist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and in 1986 he became head of the Division of Molecular Genetics of the Institute. Here his group did pioneering work to generate and utilize genetically modified mice as a tool to search for new cancer genes. Currently, his group focuses on the development and use of advanced mouse models for cancer. Themes of his current research are: i. Establishing genotype-phenotype correlations of tumors using Cre-mediated switching of multiple oncogenes/tumor suppressor genes in a spatiotemporal controlled fashion with emphasis on lung cancer models, and ii. The use of high throughput proviral insertional mutagenesis to identify components in signaling pathways relevant for cancer. His group consists of approximately 12 post-docs and graduate students. In 1999, he was appointed as Director of Research and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Netherlands Cancer Institute/Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital.

Website: http://www.nki.nl/Research/default.htm
e-mail: a.berns@nki.nl

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Professor Mina J. Bissell

Distinguished Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

Professor Mina Bissell is a Distinguished Scientist (Nov 2002-) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), University of CA (UC), Berkeley, CA, where she is also Senior Advisor to the Laboratory Director on Biology (Nov. 2002-), a member of 3 graduate groups at UC Berkeley, and a member of the Faculty, Breast Oncology Program, UCSF (2006-).

Professor Bissell gained a B.A. (Honors) in Chemistry from Radcliffe/Harvard College (1963) and an M.A. (1964) and Ph.D. from Harvard University Medical School in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics (1969). Previous research experience and employment includes: Visiting Wellcome Professor, Kettering Institute, University of Cincinnati Medical School (1986-88); Director, Cell and Molecular Biology Division, LBNL (1988-92); Director, Life Sciences Division (includes Cell and Molecular Biology Division), LBNL (1992-2002); Associate Director, Biosciences, LBNL (1995-2002).

She has received numerous awards and honors, including the Lawrence Award and Medal; President, American Society of Cell Biology (1997); Election to the Institute of Medicine of National Academies (IOM); Honorary Doctorate, Pierre & Marie Curie University, Paris, France (2001); Innovator Award in Breast Cancer, US Department of Defense (2002); Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2002); Honorary Doctorate, University of Copenhagen (2004); Distinguished Scientist Award, OBER, US Dept. of Energy (2005); Ted Couch Lectureship and Award in Cancer Research, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute (2007); Pezcoller Foundation - AACR International Award for Cancer Research (2007); Election to the American Philosophical Society (2007); more than 80 distinguished and named lectures.

Professor Bissell has served on many national and international committees and review boards, including: Chair, 2 Gordon Research Conferences and 2 Keystone Conferences (1993, 96, 98, 2005); 4 NIH Study Sections; NCI Panel on "Preclinical Models of Cancer" (1997-98); Board of Directors, AACR (1999-2001); Breakthrough Breast Cancer, London, UK (2002-); Nominating Committee, AACR (2006-2008).

She is currently Associate Editor and member of the Editorial Boards of 15 journals including: Journal of Cell Science (2006-); Science (2005-); The FASEB Journal (2002-); Breast Cancer Research (1999- Senior Editor). She has authored more than 250 original papers and has had 5 patents issued.

Website: http://www.lbl.gov/lifesciences/BissellLab/main.html

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Anne-Lise Børresen-Dale

Head of Department of Genetics, Institute for Cancer Research, Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet Medical Centre and Professor of Molecular Tumour Biology ay University of Oslo, Norway

A-L Børresen-Dale has a large scientific production of more than 300 papers and books and is among the leading geneticists in research on molecular biology of breast cancer. She came to the Cancer Research Institute, Department of Genetics in 1987 and under her leadership a novel mutation detection systems was developed, and further used for screening for TP53 mutations in large series of tumours, showing that mutations in this gene are relevant for prognostic evaluation, progression of the disease and prediction of therapy response. In collaboration with the Professors D. Botstein and P. Brown, Stanford University, California, she performed pioneering work on expression profiling of breast tumours using genome wide microarrays. They identified 5 distinct subtypes of breast cancer (luminal subtypes A and B, a basal-like subtype, an ERBB2 and a normal like subtype), that were associated with significant differences in survival. This was a fundamentally important discovery. She has received several prizes and awards; the two most recent being the SalusAnsvar Medical prize for Outstanding Research in Tumor biology in 2002, and the Swiss Bridge Award for outstanding Cancer Research in 2004. She is also an elected Member of The Royal Norwegian Academy of Science and of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. . Børresen-Dale has served on the Board of Directors for AACR and is currently President Elect for EACR.

Website: http://www.radium.no/genetics/
e-mail: a.l.borresen-dale@medisin.uio.no

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Dr Peter Boyle

Director International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), France

Peter Boyle is a graduate of Glasgow University (Scotland, United Kingdom). Following successive appointments with the Glasgow University Department of Medicine, the West of Scotland Cancer Surveillance Unit, Harvard School of Public Health and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in 1991 he was named Director of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, Italy. He was elected Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC/WHO) in Lyon, France and took up his position in January 2004.

Peter Boyle's research interests lie mainly in disease prevention and the application of research findings to reduce population disease risk, and in particular in the associations between tobacco, nutrition, hormones and cancer risk and how this risk is affected by genetic susceptibility. He has published widely on a number of different types of cancer, notably breast, colorectal, pancreas, prostate and oral cavity cancers, as well as on benign urological conditions.

In the past, Peter Boyle was Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Chronic Disease Epidemiology and a Member of the European Cancer Advisory Board. In this latter role, he worked as scientific advisor to the European Commission on the European Tobacco Contents Directive, which was voted into law in 2003. He was also responsible for the production of the two European Cancer Atlases and for the two revisions of the European Code Against Cancer.

Currently, he is Honorary Professor of Cancer Prevention and Control at Oxford University, Honorary Professor of Cancer Epidemiology at Birmingham University and Visiting Professor at Glasgow University.

Peter Boyle has been honoured by the award of the Knight's Cross of Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (for contribution to public health in Poland); by election to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the National Academy of Scotland; by the award of Honorary Membership in the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO), the Hungarian Oncological Association and the Argentine Medical Association; by the award of Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow; by the award of Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; and by election to the Academy of Medical Sciences of the United Kingdom. In 2006, he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Aberdeen (Scotland, United Kingdom).

Website: http://www.iarc.fr
e-mail: boyle@iarc.fr

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Professor Nils Brünner

Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Professor Nils Brünner, DMSc, MD, received his basic medical education at University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He then trained in internal medicine and medical oncology at hospitals in Greater Copenhagen. In 1987, he went to the National Cancer Institute, NIH, Maryland, USA for one year and then to Lombardi Cancer Research Centre, Georgetown University Hospital, Washington DC for a second year. He received his education in molecular and cellular biology during these two years abroad. Back in Denmark he joined the Finsen Laboratory, Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, where until 2002, he was leading a research group working with translational cancer research within proteinases, their receptors and inhibitors. In 2002 he became full Professor at the Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen. He is currently leading a research group mainly focusing on non- anti-proteolytic functions of protease inhibitors. He is author of more than 250 publications, many of which deal with translational research on proteinase inhibitors and breast cancer or colorectal cancer. Nils Brünner has a long-standing membership of the EORTC Pathobiology Group, and he served as Chairman of Laboratory Research Division and member of the Executive Board of EORTC 2003-2006.

Website: http://www.life.ku.dk/English.aspx
e-mail: nbr@kvl.dk

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Professor Dr. Med. Franco Cavalli

President of UICC
Director, Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland (IOSI), Bellinzona, Switzerland.

Franco Cavalli, MD, FRCP, is currently director of IOSI and President of the International Union against Cancer (UICC). He graduated from the Medical Faculty in Bern, where he also received his training in medical oncology, as well as in Brussels and London. Cavalli has been chairman of the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) and of the Early Clinical Trials Group of EORTC. He was one of the founders of the Phase I studies in Europe. Later he devoted his research time mainly to malignant lymphomas; his group has made significant contributions mainly in clarifying the biology of extra nodal lymphomas. Ten years ago he created the International Extranodal Lymphoma Study Group (IELSG), which now encompasses about 150 institutions in 4 continents. Every 3rd year he organizes the International Conference on Malignant Lymphomas in Lugano, the only really global conference on clinical and basic research in lymphoid neoplasms. Together with S. Kaye (London) and H. Hansen (Copenhagen) he is the editor of the Textbook of Medical Oncology. He was also the founding editor of Annals of Oncology. He has published more than 400 articles in peer-review journals and has received 15 awards.

Website: http://www.iosi.ch/en/iosi.html
e-mail: iosidirezione@iosi.ch

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Shujun Cheng

Professor, Department of Etiology and Chemical Carcinogenesis, Cancer Institute (Hospital), Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China

Shujun Cheng is currently Professor of the Cancer Institute (Hospital), Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical "Fundamental Investigation of Human Carcinogenesis and Cancer Therapy Prevention". He is also the President of the Chinese Environmental Mutagen Society, and the Vice President of the China Anti-cancer Association.

He developed an approach to studying human lung cancer-related proteins in human blood. He established four immortalized Chinese bronchial epithelial cell lines, which were used for the studies of human lung carcinogenesis. He has established short-term tests for the detection of environmental carcinogens and anticarcinogens. He found that tea polyphenon showed a significant inhibitory effect against human genital condylomas and inflammatory hyperplasia. Based on the studies of tea polyphenon, he and his collaborators received international patents "Composistion for treating condyloma acuminate" in 1998. Tea polyphenon was approved by the United States FDA as a prescription drug for the treatment of human genital warts in 2006. Professor Cheng was elected Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1999.

e-mail: chengshj@263.net.cn

Eleftherios P. Diamandis

Professor and Head, Division of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Toronto, and Head, Section of Clinical Biochemistry, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada

Eleftherios P. Diamandis is currently Professor and Head, Division of Clinical Biochemistry, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto and Head, Section of Clinical Biochemistry, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto.

Dr Diamandis received his B.Sc. in Chemistry, Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry and M.D. from the University of Athens, Greece and his Diploma in Clinical Biochemistry from the University of Toronto, Canada. He is a Certified Clinical Chemist by the Canadian Academy of Clinical Biochemistry and the American Board of Clinical Chemistry.

He has published 4 books, 50 review papers and over 350 research papers. His interest is in tumor markers, genomic and proteomic technologies and their applications to diagnosis and monitoring of cancer.

Website: http://www.acdclab.org

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Dr Pier Paolo Di Fiore

Scientific Director, FIRC Institute for Molecular Oncology Foundation, Milan, and Professor General Pathology, University of Milan, Italy

Dr Pier Paolo Di Fiore received his M.D./Ph.D from the University of Naples Italy and was subsequently Board certified in Oncology, at the same University. After finishing a Fogarty Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, he was tenured and served as Section Chief in the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Biology of the NCI. In 1995, he returned to Italy; he is now the Scientific Director of the FIRC Institute for Molecular Oncology Foundation in Milan and Professor of General Pathology at the University of Milan. His research interests include studies on the mechanisms of signal transduction by growth factor receptors in tumours and the role of endocytosis in this process. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and Editor of The Journal of Cell Biology. He has published more than 150 papers in international journals. In the course of his career, he has received significant honors and awards, such as the Swiss Bridge Award and the Technology Transfer Award of the National Cancer Institute (NIH), and has pioneered the development of two biotech companies.

Website: http://www.ifom-ieo-campus.it/groups/difiore.html
e-mail: pierpaolo.difiore@ifom-ieo-campus.it

Articles by this author.

Lee M. Ellis, MD

Professor of Surgery and Cancer Biology, The John E. and Dorothy J. Harris Professor in Gastrointestinal Cancer Research, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

Lee M. Ellis, MD, completed his residency in surgery at the University of Florida in 1990. Dr Ellis went on to complete a surgical oncology fellowship at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he has been on the faculty since 1993. He has a dual appointment as a Professor in the departments of Surgical Oncology and Cancer Biology.

Dr Ellis has a clinical practice in Surgical Oncology, where he operates on patients with colorectal cancer and liver metastases. Academically, Dr Ellis has established a reputation for expertise in the area of angiogenesis and growth factor receptors in gastrointestinal malignancies. His group was the first to demonstrate that VEGF was a valid target in colorectal cancer. He has been a consultant to numerous branches of the NCI including CTEP. In 2000, he was awarded the Faculty Scholar Award from the MD Anderson Cancer Center and in 2005, The John E. and Dorothy J. Harris Professor in Gastrointestinal Cancer Research.

Dr Ellis serves on 8 editorial boards, including the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, and Molecular Oncology and has authored over 180 peer-reviewed publications, 80 invited reviews and editorials, three books, and 30 book chapters. He has served as a bridge in translating research between the laboratory and the clinic.

Dr. Ellis has published several important editorials in journals such as the NEJM, Cell, Cancer Cell, Nature Medicine, JNCI, JCO, Nature Drug Discovery, and The Lancet. He is co-chair of the largest clinical angiogenesis meeting in the world held in Jan/Feb annually. Dr Ellis is Director of the Angiogenesis Multidisciplinary Research Program at MD Anderson. He is a consultant to numerous Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies involved in targeted therapies. Dr Ellis serves in a leadership role in the major cancer societies such as ASCO, AACR, and the SSO, where he has served on numerous committees. He is currently chair of the 2007 GI Cancers Symposium.

Website: http://www.mdanderson.org
e-mail: lellis@mdanderson.org

Articles by this author.

Manel Esteller, MD, PhD

Director Cancer Epigenetics Laboratory, Spanish National Cancer Centre (CNIO), Barcelona, Spain

Dr Esteller graduated in Medicine with Honors from the University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and obtained his PhD Degree Cum Laude at the University of Barcelona. He was an Invited Researcher at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom and a Postdoctoral Researcher and Research Associate at The Johns Hopkins University and School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA. Author of more than 160 original peer-reviewed manuscripts in biomedical sciences in the most highly-ranked journals, he has placed the hypermethylation-associated silencing of tumor suppressor genes and the landscape of histone modifications at the forefront, not only of epigenetics, but also of the current cancer research. He is an advisor and advocate of the Human Epigenome Project and Associate Member of the European Network of Excellence the Epigenome. His numerous awards include: Best Young Investigator from the European Association for Cancer Research (2000), Hospital de Madrid Foundation Award for Translational Science (2005), Beckman-Coulter Award from the Spanish Association of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2006), Biomedical Research Award Francisco Cobos Foundation (2006), Oxford University Press Carcinogenesis Award (2006) and Swiss Bridge Cancer Award (2006).

Websites: http://www.cancerepigenetics.com/
http://www.cnio.es/ing/grupos/plantillas/presentacion.asp?grupo=50004270
e-mail: mesteller@cnio.es

Articles by this author.

Stephen Henry Friend, M.D., Ph.D.

Executive Vice President, Oncology, Merck Research Laboratories, North Wales, PA, USA and President, Rosetta Inpharmatics, LLC, Seattle, WA, USA

Education:
1975: B.A. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (Philosophy)
1979: Ph.D. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (Chemistry)
1981: M.D. Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN

Academic Appointments:
1987-1988: Instructor in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
1988-1993: Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, The Children's Hospital, Boston, MA
1990-1995: Faculty Member, Cell and Developmental Biology Program, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
1993-1995: Associate Professor of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
1994-1995: Sabbatical: Visiting Scientist, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA
1995-1998: Professor, Department of Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
1995-2000: Full Member, Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA
1997-1999: President and CSO of Rosetta Inpharmatics, Inc., Kirkland, WA
2000-2001: President and CEO of Rosetta Inpharmatics, Inc., Kirkland, WA
2001-present: President, Rosetta Inpharmatics, LLC, Seattle, WA
2001-2002: Vice President, Basic Research, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, PA
2002-2003: Vice President, Molecular Profiling, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, PA
2003-2004: Senior Vice President, Molecular Profiling & Basic Cancer Research, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, PA
2004-2005: Senior Vice President, Molecular Profiling & Cancer Research, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, PA
2004-present: President, Aton Pharma, Inc.
2005-present: Executive Vice President, Oncology, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co., Inc., North Wales, PA

Hospital Appointments:
1988: Assistant Pediatrician, Children's Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
1989-1990: Assistant Member, MGH Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
1990-1991: Associate Member, MGH Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
1991-1995: Member, MGH Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA

Awards and Honors:
Recent awards and honors include:
1993: American Cancer Society Faculty Research Award
1994: Robert Steel Visiting Professor, Memorial Sloan-Kettering
1995: J.W. Meakin Prize in Oncology, Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation

Major Research Interests:
1. Clinical Applications of Checkpoint Controls
2. Molecular Biology of Embryonal Tumors
3. Tumor Suppressor Genes
4. Molecular Pharmacology
5. Array Technology
6. Genomic Approaches to Drug Discovery

Dr Friend is also author of 69 original articles and 33 chapters, reviews and editorials.

Websites: http://www.merck.com/ and http://www.rii.com
e-mail: stephen_friend@merck.com

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Todd R. Golub, MD

Charles A. Dana Investigator in Human Cancer Genetics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA

Todd Golub is a founding member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and serves as director of its Cancer program. Todd is a world leader in applying genomic tools to the classification and study of cancers. His work focuses on using the human genome to understand the biological and clinical challenges facing cancer medicine. He has made fundamental discoveries in the molecular basis of childhood leukaemia, and pioneered the use of genomic approaches, particularly DNA microarrays, to cancer biology. Todd is the Charles A. Dana Investigator in Human Cancer Genetics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and an investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Todd is the recipient of multiple awards, including Discover Magazine's Inventor of the Year (Health Category) in 2000, the Daland Prize of the American Philosophical Society in 2001, and the Outstanding Achievement Award (formerly Cornelius Rhoads Memorial Prize), American Association for Cancer Research in 2002.

Todd received his BA in 1985 from Carleton College and his MD in 1989 from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Website: http://www.broad.mit.edu
e-mail: golub@genome.wi.mit.edu

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H. Barton Grossman, MD

Professor Departments of Urology and Cancer Biology, and Deputy Chairman Department of Urology, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

H. Barton Grossman holds the W. A. "Tex" and Deborah Moncrief, Jr. Distinguished Chair in Urology at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is a Professor in the Departments of Urology and Cancer Biology and Deputy Chairman of the Department of Urology at M. D. Anderson. He has had a long-standing clinical and basic research interest in bladder cancer. He is currently Co-PI of the M. D. Anderson SPORE focused on bladder cancer and a member of the Program for the Assessment of Clinical Cancer Tests (PACCT) Strategy Group of the National Cancer Institute. He is on the editorial boards of Journal of Urology, Urologic Oncology, and Oncology Reports. He is a reviewer for multiple journals and has over 200 peer-reviewed publications.

Website: http://www.mdanderson.org

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Dr Brian Haab

Director, Laboratory of Cancer Immunodiagnostics, Van Andel Research Institute, Grand Rapids, MI, USA

Dr Brian Haab is a Scientific Investigator and director of the Laboratory of Cancer Immunodiagnostics at the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Prior to joining the Van Andel Research Institute in May of 2000, Dr. Haab performed post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Patrick O. Brown at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1998, and his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1992. His research focuses on the development of array-based protein analysis methods and their application to the study of cancer-associated alterations to secreted proteins.

Website: http://www.vai.org/
e-mail: Brian.Haab@vai.org

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Nadia Harbeck

Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Technical University of Munich, Cologne, Germany

Nadia Harbeck is Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany, where she is responsible for breast cancer systemic therapy (including trials) and coordinating clinical and translational breast cancer research. Professor Harbeck is a member of the German AGO breast cancer guideline committee, a steering committee member of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) PathoBiology Group, the Breast Cancer Group of the Munich Tumor Center, TransBIG, TransHERA, and a member of numerous other professional organisations, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). She is also the Principal Investigator and steering committee member of several national and international clinical breast cancer trials. Professor Harbeck has authored more than 140 papers in peer-reviewed journals with her research focus being on prognostic and predictive factors in breast cancer and other solid malignancies. She has received numerous awards for her translational research, including the 2001 ASCO Fellowship Merit Award, a 2001 AACR Award for clinical-translational research, and the 2002 AGO Schmidt-Matthiesen Award for Gynecological Oncology. She was recently elected to give the Emmanuel van der Schueren Invited Lecture in the opening ceremony at EBCC 6 (Berlin, Germany, April 2008).

Website: http://www.frauenklinik.med.tu-muenchen.de/
e-mail: nadia.harbeck@lrz.tum.de

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Dr. Daniel F. Hayes

Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan and Director, Breast Oncology Program, University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, USA

Dr Daniel Hayes has a long history of involvement in laboratory, translational, and clinical research in breast cancer, particularly in tumor marker development and evaluation and novel therapy development. He has served as the Vice Chair of the Breast Committee of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, and chaired the Solid Tumor Correlative Sciences Committee of the CALGB, from 1996-2001. He now holds a similar position in the Southwest Oncology Group, and he chairs the U.S. Breast Cancer Intergroup Correlative Sciences Committee.

Dr. Hayes has or is serving on the Editorial Boards of several scientific journals, including the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, The Breast Journal, Clinical Breast Cancer, and Breast Cancer Research. Dr. Hayes has served on several prestigious committees, including the recently convened Institute of Medicine Committee which authored the report "Mammography and Beyond," and he co-chairs the Tumor Marker Expert Advisory Panel for the American Society of Clinical Oncology. This considerable experience in designing, performing, and evaluating clinical trials in breast cancer are particularly important for his role in this grant, as a consultant, advisor and co-investigator for studies of patient oriented decision aids.

Website: http://www.med.umich.edu/
e-mail: hayesdf@umich.edu

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Carl-Henrik Heldin, PhD

Branch Director, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Uppsala, Sweden
Professor in Molecular Cell Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden

C. H. Heldin has been the Branch Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Uppsala, Sweden since 1986, and from 1992 also professor in Molecular Cell Biology at Uppsala University. He was born in 1952, and obtained a PhD degree in Medical and Physiological Chemistry in 1980 at the University of Uppsala, where he continued to work until 1985, in a position sponsored by the Swedish Cancer Society.

The research interest of C. H. Heldin is related to the mechanisms of signal transduction by growth regulatory factors, as well as their normal function and role in disease. In particular, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), a major mitogen for connective tissue cells, and transforming growth factor-□ (TGF-□), which inhibits the growth of most cell types, are studied. An important goal is to explore the possible clinical utility of signal transduction antagonists.

C. H. Heldin is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Academia Europea. He serves or has served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several companies and academic institutions, including the German cancer Center, Heidelberg, Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry, Martinsried, European Institute for Oncology, Milan, and European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg. C. H. Heldin is currently on the Board of the European Research Council and the Swedish Research Council, and serves as Senior Editor for Cancer Research and Associate Editor for Molecular Biology of the Cell, Genes to Cells and Growth Factors.

C. H. Heldin has published more than 340 research articles and 170 reviews, and has received several scientific awards, including Prix Antoine Lacassagne (1989), K. Fernströms Large medical Prize (1993) and the Pezcoller-American Association for Cancer Research Award (2002).

Website: http://www.ludwig@licr.uu.se
e-mail: C-H.Heldin@LICR.uu.se

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Ronald B. Herberman, MD

Chief Medical Officer - Oncology, Intrexon, Blacksburg, VA

Ronald B. Herberman, MD, the founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, is an internationally recognized tumor immunologist who has made major discoveries in his field and has fostered the application of this information to novel approaches to cancer therapy. Dr. Herberman also is associate vice chancellor for cancer research, Hillman professor of oncology and professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

The phenomenon of natural killer (NK) cell-mediated cytotoxicity against tumors was first discovered in Dr. Herberman's laboratory in the early 1970s, at a time when most cellular immunologists expected to find T cell-mediated cytotoxicity against experimental and human tumor cells. His pioneering investigations of NK cells have demonstrated that they play an important role in resistance to the metastatic spread of cancer and that stimulation of NK activity by various immunomodulators leads to inhibition of metastases.

In addition to Dr. Herberman's seminal contributions to research on NK cells, he has played a leading role in the development of several other important aspects of tumor immunology. During his 19 years at the NCI, his contributions included the development of evidence for specifics antitumor immunity to human tumors and evidence for the prognostic value of some of these functions; the organization of a national program of immunodiagnostic research and a critical approach to the evaluation of tumor markers; a major role in the development of the Biological Response Modifiers Program of the NCI; and the adoption of a systematic, rational approach to the clinical investigation of biological response modifiers.

Much of Dr. Herberman's current research focuses on the systematic evaluation of IL-2-stimulated NK cells for their therapeutic efficacy and prolongation of survival, especially in regard to the use of this strategy in treatment of minimal residual disease following conventional treatment by surgery or chemotherapy, or both.

Dr. Herberman's achievements have been recognized by numerous awards, including the Governor of Pennsylvania's Award for Excellence in Science and Medicine, a Lifetime Science Award from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Immunology and Aging, and the Solomon A. Berson Medical Alumni Achievement Award in Clinical Science from his alma mater, New York University. Dr. Herberman was noted as one of the 100 most-cited research authors for the period 1981-1990.

Website: http://www.upci.upmc.edu/
e-mail: herbermanrb@upmc.edu

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Harvey Herschman

Ralph and Marjorie Crump Professor of Molecular Imaging Distinguished Professor, Departments of Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Director for Basic Research, UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center

Dr. Herschman received his B.A from Rice University in Houston, Texas in 1962. He received his Ph.D. from the department of biology, University of California, San Diego in 1967 and then spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Brandeis University before joining the faculty of the Department of Biological Chemistry at the UCLA school of medicine in 1967. Dr. Herschman is now Professor of Biological Chemistry and Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UCLA. He holds the Ralph and Marjorie Crump Chair in Molecular Imaging. He is also the Vice-Chair of the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, the Vice-Chair of the Department of Biological Chemistry, the Director for Basic Research of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Principal Investigator for the UCLA In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center.

Dr. Herschman's laboratory has emphasized methods of gene discovery in areas of cell growth and division, inflammation, hormone and growth factor responses, neurotrophin-driven neuronal differentiation and depolarization of neurons. One of these gene discovery programs identified cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2). He continues to study the role of the COX-2 gene in tumor progression, using skin and colon cancer models. More recently, he coordinated a project at UCLA that has combined the talents and expertise of molecular biologists, cell biologists, radiochemists, enzymologists, biochemists, instrumentation design physicists, mathematician and nuclear medicine physicians to develop an interdisciplinary technology that permits repetitive, non-invasive and quantitative imaging of reporter genes in living mammals, using a combination of molecular biology, genetic techniques, and imaging tools that employ positron emission tomography and optical imaging.

Website: http://dgsom.healthsciences.ucla.edu/

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David E. Hill, Ph.D.

Associate Director, Center for Cancer Systems Biology (CCSB) and Senior Research Scientist, Department of Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA

David E. Hill is a graduate of Indiana University with a B.A. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. His post-doctoral research was at Harvard Medical School on transcriptional regulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. He then moved to Genetics Institute, working on cloning and heterologous expression of microbial proteins. In 1988, Dr. Hill joined a privately held biotechnology company, Applied bioTechnology (AbT), which became part of Oncogene Science and later the Oncogene Research Products component of CN Biosciences. During his tenure at AbT and Oncogene, he was responsible for discovery research on tyrosine phosphatases and for product development efforts in tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes with emphasis on research and development of antibody-based products for the study of apoptosis, cancer susceptibility, DNA damage response, and cell cycle regulation and checkpoints. In 2000, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Marc Vidal at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as a Visiting Scientist in Cancer Biology involved in efforts directed towards high throughput, semi-automated large scale cloning and expression of all open reading frames of the Caenorhabditis elegans and human genomes and subsequent structural and functional studies of the C. elegans and human proteomes including the generation of proteome-scale protein-protein interaction maps for both human and worm. In 2004, Drs. Vidal and Hill created the Center for Cancer Systems Biology (CCSB) that became part of the DFCI Strategic Initiative and the first of six new research Centers at DFCI. Currently, he is a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Cancer Biology and Associate Director of CCSB. In addition to his research efforts, he is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the A-T Children's Project and serves on various NIH Study Sections including NCI Special Projects and Innovative Technologies for the Molecular Analysis of Cancer Study Sections.

Website: http://www.danafarber.org
e-mail: David_Hill@dfci.harvard.edu

Dr Les Hughes

Global VP for Cancer and Infection Research at AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca has a heritage in anti-hormonal drugs with the discovery and development of Nolvadex (tamoxifen), Arimidex and Faslodex for the treatment of hormone responsive breast cancer. In addition, the anti-androgen Casodex and the LHRH agonist Zoladex are used for prostate cancer and Zoladex for pre-menopausal breast cancer. Currently, the research effort in cancer is targeted at finding novel therapies aimed at one of the following distinguishing features of cancer by blocking proliferation, inducing apoptosis, blocking angiogenesis, inhibiting invasion or controlling the cell cycle. The initial drug from this research, Iressa, (inhibitor of EGF receptor tyrosine kinase) is benefiting patients with NSCLC while there are a number of other agents in late stage development. AstraZeneca undertakes their oncology drug discovery at labs in Boston (USA), Macclesfield (UK), Reims (France) and Cambridge (England)

Website: http://www.astrazeneca.co.uk/
http://www.astrazeneca-us.com/

Tony Hunter

Director, Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA

Tony Hunter is an American Cancer Society Research Professor and Director of the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California at San Diego. He is best known for his discovery of tyrosine phosphorylation, and the elucidation of its role in cell proliferation and malignant transformation. His general area of interest is in understanding mechanisms of signal transduction that utilize protein phosphorylation, ubiquitination and sumoylation and are involved in cell proliferation and growth control, and in cell cycle checkpoint activation in response to DNA damage.

Website: http://www.salk.edu/
e-mail: hunter@salk.edu

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Professor Marja Jäättelä, MD, PhD

The Danish Cancer Society, Institute of Cancer Biology and Centre for Genotoxic Stress Research, Copenhagen, Denmark

Marja Jäättelä is the head of the Apoptosis Department at the Institute of Cancer Biology, Danish Cancer Society and Professor in tumour biology at the University of Copenhagen. In her research, she has followed her original ideas on the existence of "hidden" cell death pathways in therapy-resistant cancer cells and her group was among the first to show the existence of such pathways and their importance in cancer biology. Her current research focuses on exploring the cancer-associated changes in the composition (proteins and lipids) and trafficking of lysosomes and autophagosomes as well as cancer relevant signalling pathways responsible for cross communication between various cell death and survival mechanisms.

Website: http://www.apoptosis.dk/
e-mail: mj@cancer.dk

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Dr Elaine Jaffe

Acting Chief, Laboratory of Pathology, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA

Dr Jaffe received an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She trained in pathology at the NCI. In 1980 she became Chief, Hematopathology Section, and is currently Acting Chief of pathology.

Her clinical and investigational studies are intertwined to alter and enhance our understanding of the malignant lymphomas. One of her earliest papers on follicular lymphoma (1974), a Citation Classic, presented evidence for the origin of this tumor from follicular B cells. More recently she described in situ follicular lymphomas, which provide insight into the earliest events of follicular lymphomagenesis. Her work stresses the clinical implications of diagnoses, emphasizing the role as pathologists as clinical consultants.

Science Watch named her among the 10 most highly cited researchers in clinical oncology from 1981 and 1998. Dr. Jaffe has been president of both the Society for Hematopathology as well as the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology. She has held several positions in the American Society of Hematology. In 1993, she was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and subsequently was elected Chair of the Medical Sciences Section of AAAS. Among her awards are the Fred W. Stewart Award from Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and the Lennert prize from the European Association for Haematopathology. She has served on 12 journal editorial boards, including The American Journal of Pathology, The American Journal of Surgical Pathology, Blood, Cancer Research, and Modern Pathology, among others

Dr. Jaffe was a member of the Steering Committee and Senior Editor for the (2001) WHO Classifications of Tumors: Pathology and Genetics of the Hematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues, and is currently serving on the Steering Committee for the next edition in preparation. She also has been named one of the four Series Editors for the entire WHO monograph series on the Pathology and Genetics of Tumours.

Website: http://www.cancer.gov/
e-mail: ejaffe@mail.nih.gov

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Olli Kallioniemi, MD, PhD

Professor of the Academy of Finland, Director, Centre of Excellence in Translational Genome-Scale Biology, Medical Biotechnology VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and University of Turku Finland

Dr. Kallioniemi received his MD in 1984 and PhD in 1988 at the University of Tampere in Finland. Board certification in Laboratory Medicine in 1990. Visiting fellow at UC San Francisco 1990-1992. Senior Scientist and Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Tampere 1993-1995. Principal Investigator and Head of Translational Genomics Section (1995-2002) at the Cancer Genetics Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, Bethesda, NIH, Maryland, Professor of Medical Biotechnology at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the University of Turku, Finland (2003-present), with Academy of Finland Professorship for 2004-2008.

Author of 208 publications. Invited lecturer in over 114 meetings in the past 5 years. Editor or member of the editorial board of six journals. Inventor of 15 issued patents, with a focus on technology development. Dr. Kallioniemi has played a key role in the development of Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH) technique in 1992, tissue microarray (TMA) technology in 1998 and RNAi microarrays in 2001 and NMD microarrays in 2004. EACR young investigator award in 1994, Anders Jahre Young Scientist Prize in 1998, NIH Director's Lecture in 2000, Medal of the Swedish Medical Society 2002, Member of the Academy of Finland (2005), EMBO-member (2006).

Olli Kallioniemi's current research focuses on "Canceromics" and "Cancer-Systems Biology" research with a focus on the identification of therapeutic targets, pathways and leads as well as mechanisms of action of cancer drugs.

Website: http://www.vtt.fi
e-mail: olli.kallioniemi@vtt.fi

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Professor David Kerr

Rhodes Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Cancer Therapeutics, Doha, Qatar

Professor David Kerr is Rhodes Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Cancer Therapeutics at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Oxford. He is working with colleagues in Oxford to build a new Institute for Cancer Medicine. He has an international reputation for treatment for and research into colorectal cancer, and he is developing new approaches to cancer treatment which involve gene therapy. The quality of his work has been recognised by the award of several international prizes and the first NHS Nye-Bevan award for innovation. He has published more than 350 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has contributed to many books on cancer. Professor Kerr has chaired the Advisory Board developing a vision for the future of Scotland's Health Service and produced a 20 year plan for the future of the NHS in Scotland, Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Oncology, Europe's premier medical oncology journal, and is on the editorial broad of several other journals including Nature Clinical Practice Oncology. He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2000 and appointed Commander of the British Empire in 2002.

Website: http://www.clinpharm.ox.ac.uk/
e-mail: david.kerr@clinpharm.ox.ac.uk

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Dr Edison T. Liu

Executive Director, Genome Institute of Singapore (Biomedical Sciences Institutes)
Professor of Medicine, National University of Singapore
Special Advisor to the President, National University of Singapore
Director, Singapore Cancer Syndicate
Director, Singapore Tissue Network

Dr. Edison Liu was born in Hong Kong, China and received his bachelor's degree (Phi Beta Kappa) in chemistry and psychology from Stanford University where he remained to complete his M.D. in 1978. This was followed by internship and residency in internal medicine at Washington University, St. Louis, and clinical cancer fellowships at Stanford University (Oncology), and at the University of California at San Francisco (Hematology). He then pursued post-doctoral studies as a Damon-Runyan Cancer Research Fellow at the University of California at San Francisco in the laboratory of Dr. J. Michael Bishop. In 1987 when he joined the faculty of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UNC, Dr. Liu held faculty appointments in medicine, biochemistry, epidemiology, and genetics, and was director of UNC's Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Breast Cancer. Dr. Liu was leader of the Breast Cancer Program at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and co-founder of the Breast Care Center at UNC. In 1995, he was appointed Chief of the Division of Medical Genetics, School of Medicine, UNC. In 1996, he joined the NCI as the Director of the Division of Clinical Sciences. In this capacity, he was responsible for the scientific and administrative direction for the intramural clinical research arm of the NCI comprised of over 100 principal investigators, 400 trainees, and 1,200 employees.

In 2001, Dr. Liu assumed the position of Executive Director, Genome Institute of Singapore which is a key programme of the Biomedical Sciences Initiative of Singapore. The GIS now houses 230 individuals focused on integrating genomic sciences with cell and medical biology using systems approaches. His current scientific research investigates the dynamics of gene regulation on a genome scale that can explain biological states in cancer. Dr. Liu has contributed over 200 articles, reviews, and book chapters to the scientific literature. Dr. Liu also is the executive director of the Singapore Cancer Syndicate, a governmental funding agency supporting clinical translational cancer research, and the Managing Director of the Singapore Tissue Network, the national tissue repository in Singapore.

Dr. Liu has received a number of awards including the Leukemia Society Scholar (1991-1996), the Brinker International Award for basic science research in Breast Cancer (1996), the Rosenthal Award from the American Association for Cancer Research for his work in elucidating the importance of the HER-2 gene as a predictive marker for breast cancer adjuvant therapy (2000). Dr. Liu was recently the recipient of the President's Public Service Medal for his work in helping Singapore resolve the SARS crisis.

Website: http://www.gis.a-star.edu.sg/internet/site/
e-mail: liue@gis.a-star.edu.sg

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Professor Richard Marais

Team Leader, Signal Transduction Team, Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK

Professor Marais is team leader of the Signal Transduction Team at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. He obtained a BSc (1985) in Genetics and Microbiology with 1st class honours from University College London and a Ph.D. (1989) in Comparative Studies on Protein Kinase C Isotypes from Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, London. During his postdoctoral period (1989-1992) Professor Marais worked with Dr Richard Treisman at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London and (1992-1998) as Independent Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Cancer Research, London. He is a Founder Scientist with Proacta Therapeutics Ltd., a small biotechnology company that focuses on cancer therapies and founded by the Institute of Cancer Research, Auckland University and the Cancer Research Campaign (Cancer Research Ventures) in October 2001 (now incorporated in the USA). Since 1999 he has received many grants to help finance his research, which has resulted in 10 patent applications.

His current research focuses mainly on signal transduction in the area of RAF protein. The BRAF gene is mutated in approximately 70% of melanomas and also at lower frequencies in many other cancers. Professor Marais and his team use molecular, cell and structural biology to examine the biological consequences of BRAF activation in melanoma and other cancers. They are also developing novel signal transduction inhibitors that can be used to treat human cancer and trying to understand how these drugs can be used to provide effective therapeutic approaches for melanoma. His other research interest is in gene therapy approaches to treat cancer, in collaboration with Professor Caroline Springer (Institute of Cancer Research).

Professor Marais is Secretary General of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) and member of several professional societies including the American Association for Cancer Research (since 2005), British Association for Cancer Research (since 1991), European Association for Cancer Research (since 2004). He is also a member of the steering committees for many national and international meetings.

He has authored over 90 original papers and reviews and has won several personal prizes: The British Association for Cancer Research/Zeneca Young Scientist of the Year (2001), Anniversary Prize of the Gesellschaft für Biochemie und Molekularbiologie (Society for Biochemistry Molecular Biology) (2003), EACR Young Cancer Researcher "Certificate of Merit"(2003).

e-mail: Richard.marais@icr.ac.uk

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Dr Joan Massagué

Chairman, Cancer Biology and Genetics Program, memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA

Dr Joan Massagué is Chairman of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is also a Professor at the Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences and the Gerstner Sloan-Kettering Graduate School of Medical Sciences. He is Adjunct Director of the Barcelona Institute for Research in Biomedicine. He received his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from the University of Barcelona in 1978, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University. In 1982 he became Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School until he assumed his current position in 1989.

Joan Massagué is interested in how growth factors, signaling pathways, and gene expression programs control normal cell behavior and cancer cell metastasis. He elucidated fundamental machinery that conveys growth inhibitory signals from the cell membrane to the nucleus. Combining cell biology, biochemistry and genetics, he identified the TGF-?? receptors and their mechanism of activation. Building on this, he discovered that the Smad proteins are TGF-? receptor substrates and transcriptional activators, thereby establishing the central concept of how this pathway operates. An end result of this process, Massagué found, is the inhibition of cell division through novel CDK inhibitors that he co-discovered. His work provided a direct explanation for how external signals block mammalian cell division. These mechanisms are now known to be crucial in embryonic development, and their disruption causes tumor formation and metastasis. Building on these advances, Dr. Massagué has recently identified genes and mechanisms that mediate the ability of breast tumors to form metastasis in vital organs, answering long-standing questions and opening new avenues of investigation into this devastating aspect of cancer. Dr. Massagué has published over 250 papers on these topics and is ranked among the 50 most highly cited scientists of the past 20 years.

Dr. Massagué has served as an advisor to the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Fox Chase Cancer Center, the Searle Foundation, and the General Motors Foundation, and in the editorial boards of The Journal of Biological Chemistry, The Journal of Cell Biology, The Journal of Clinical Investigation, EMBO Journal, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Massagué is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology, the Spanish Royal Academies of Medicine and Pharmacy, and the European Molecular Biology Organization. He is the recipient of the King Juan Carlos Prize, the Prince of Asturias Prize, the Vilcek Prize, and the Passano Prize, among other honors.

Website: http://www.mskcc.org
e-mail: j-massague@ski.mskcc.org

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John Mendelsohn, MD

President, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

Dr. John Mendelsohn was born in Cincinnati and earned his bachelor's degree in biochemical sciences magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1958. While there, he was the first undergraduate student of Dr. James D. Watson, who later won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for identifying the structure of DNA. Dr. Mendelsohn received his medical degree cum laude from Harvard Medical School in 1963. He was founding director of the Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, and served as chairman of the department of medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for eleven years.

Dr. Mendelsohn combines experience in clinical and laboratory research with administrative expertise for guiding The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in the new century. Since becoming president in July 1996, he has recruited a visionary management team and implemented new priorities for integrated programs in patient care, research, education and cancer prevention.

For almost three decades, Dr. Mendelsohn has been at the forefront in understanding how growth factors regulate the proliferation of cancer cells by activating receptors on the surface of the cells. These receptors, when activated, control key cell signaling pathways. He and his colleagues developed a specific monoclonal antibody called Cetuximab (Erbitux TM), which blocks the activity of the receptor for epidermal growth factor. Their publication in 1983 was the first demonstration of an anticancer therapy which targets a growth factor receptor and a tyrosine kinase, and their publication in 1991 was the first clinical trial testing this approach in cancer patients. Subsequent clinical studies have demonstrated that therapy combining this antireceptor antibody with chemotherapy or radiation is effective treatment for patients with several forms of cancer. On February 12, 2004, the FDA approved Erbitux TM for treatment of advanced colorectal cancer, and on March 1, 2006 for treatment of head and neck cancer.

Dr. Mendelsohn served as the founding editor of Clinical Cancer Research, a bimonthly clinical research journal published by the American Association for Cancer Research. He has authored more than 250 scientific papers and articles for journals and a textbook on the Molecular Basis of Cancer. Dr. Mendelsohn's past honors include the Gold Medal of Paris, the Joseph H. Burchenal Clinical Research Award from the American Association for Cancer Research, and The Breast Cancer Research Foundation's Jill Rose Award. He was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. In May 2002, he received the Simon Shubitz Prize from the University of Chicago. He was honored with the David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2002, and received the Bristol-Myers Squibb Freedom to Discover Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research in October 2004. In April 2005 he and his wife were jointly honored for public service by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In May 2005 he received the Fullbright Lifetime Achievement Medal which was created to honor Fullbright alumni whose distinguished careers and civic and cultural contributions have sought to expand the boundaries of human wisdom, empathy, and perception. In May 2006, he received the Dan David Prize in the Future Time Dimension at Tel Aviv University for pioneering the rapidly developing modality of antibody-mediated cancer therapy in general and that of antibodies to growth factor receptors in particular.

Dr. Mendelsohn and his wife, Anne, jointly participate in multiple civic activities. Dr. Mendelsohn is an active member of the Greater Houston Partnership (Board), the Houston Technology Center (Board), BioHouston (Vice-Chairman), the Center for Houston's Future (Board) and the Houston Forum. The Mendelsohns have three sons.

Website: http://www.mdanderson.org
e-mail: jmendelsohn@mdanderson.org

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Dr Gordon B. Mills

Co-Director Kleberg Center for Molecular Markers,The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

In 1994, Dr. Gordon B. Mills was recruited to The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he holds the rank of professor with joint appointments in Systems Biology, Breast Medical Oncology and Immunology; serves as chairman of the Department of Systems Biology; head of the section of Molecular Therapeutics and holds the Ann Rife Cox Chair in Gynecology. Dr. Mills is co-Director of the newly formed Kleberg Center for Molecular Markers and director for the new SCRBII Molecular Markers building to be opened this fall.

With more than 300 publications either published or in press, Dr. Mills has authored papers in such prestigious journals as Nature, Cell, Oncogene, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Cancer Research, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Clinical Cancer Research. A testament to the quality of his research, Dr. Mills' work in ovarian cancer, breast cancer and tumor immunology has been continuously funded by major peer-reviewed grants for 20 years. He serves as principal investigator on five NIH/NCI grants and three Department of Defense grants, co-principal investigator on two NIH/NCI grants and one Department of Defense grant, and collaborator on multiple other national peer-reviewed grants.

Dr. Mills has made significant contributions to the understanding of ovarian tumorigenesis, including the identification and development of lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) as a possible marker for early-stage ovarian cancer and as a potential target for therapy. He also has played a major role in increasing our understanding of the genetic aberrations in the phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase/PTEN/AKT pathway, forwarding this cascade as a major target for the therapy of multiple types of cancer.

Dr. Mills is the holder of more than 20 patents related to novel technologies and molecular markers. He was a co founder of an early diagnostics company. He currently sits on the scientific advisory boards of multiple different companies and venture capital groups. Based on his expertise in technology development, he is the head of the MD Anderson Cancer Center Technology Review Committee.

Dr. Mills now heads the Kleberg Center for Molecular Markers. This Center holds the responsibility for developing personalized molecular medicine at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. Specifically, this center will implement a series of novel technologies to for the first time explore the genetic changes and their consequences at the DNA, RNA and protein levels in human tumors. This information will be used to identify patients at high risk for tumor development so they can be triaged to early screening and chemoprevention, identify markers to use in early screening, and to determine approaches to ensure that patients receive the most effective and least toxic therapies targeting the underlying genetic aberrations in tumors.

Dr. Mills earned his M.D. and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Alberta. From 1985 to 1994, Dr. Mills was a member of the faculty of the University of Toronto, rising to the rank of Associate Professor in the departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Immunology, and Clinical Biochemistry. Also during this time, he was an active staff member and director of Oncology Research at the Toronto Hospital.

Website: http://www.mdanderson.org
e-mail: gmills@mdanderson.org

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Holger Moch

Professor of Pathology, University Zurich, Switzerland

Dr Holger Moch is Professor of Pathology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He is the Chairman of the Institute for Surgical Pathology as well as Clinical Co-Direktor in the Department of Pathology of the University Hospital Zurich. Dr. Moch is graduate of the Humboldt University Berlin (Charité), Germany and completed his residency training at the Institute for Pathology, University Basel, Switzerland.

His research program is devoted to the identification of clinically significant biomarkers in cancer as well as the evaluation of novel molecular technologies in surgical pathology. The current research interests are focused on tumor metastasis and VHL-regulated genes. Dr Moch is a member of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, the editorial board of various journals and boards of several cancer research foundations. He is member of the Executive Committee of the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK), the Cancer Network Zurich (CNZ), and the Competence Center for Systems Physiology and Metabolic Diseases (CC-SPMD) of the University Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology Zurich (ETH).

Website: http://www.pathologie.usz.ch

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Professor Edit Oláh

Department of Molecular Genetics, National Institute of Oncology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

Professor Oláh is founder and head of the Department of Molecular Genetics, National Institute of Oncology and professor of Molecular genetics, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. She has also held positions in the USA, e.g. as visiting Professor, Laboratory for Experimental Oncology in Indianapolis. Professor Oláh obtained her Ph.D. in cancer genetics at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest in 1974. Her main areas of research include: i) genetic predisposition to cancer (female and male breast-, colorectal-, ovarian- and testicular cancer; ii) alternative splicing; iii) genetic epidemiology of cancer susceptibility genes in Central and Eastern European populations; iv) molecular control of cell proliferation and differentiation.

Professor Oláh has received many awards and honors including: Corresponding Member, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2007); Krompecher Award of Hungarian Cancer Society (2001), George Weber Foundation Award (1999). She has also served as Chair/Member, Fellowship Committee of International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon (2006-); President, Hungarian Cancer Society (2005-2007); Chair, European Coalition for Biomedical Research (2006-); President/Executive Committee Member, European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) (2000-2008); Trustee, World Alliance of Cancer Research Organizations (WACRO) (2001-2004).

Professor Oláh serves on 6 editorial boards, including Molecular Cancer Research, Advances in Molecular Medicine, Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research and Molecular Oncology.

She is author of 120 original publications in scientific journals, mostly on molecular cancer genetics/biology, cancer susceptibility genes, gene expression/alternative splicing and mitogenic signal transduction.

e-mail: e.olah@oncol.hu

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Professor Moshe Oren

Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Moshe Oren is professor at the Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. In 1982, together with Dr. Arnold Levine, he cloned the p53 gene. In 1989, the Oren group demonstrated that wild type (wt) p53, but not cancer-associated mutants thereof, can suppress oncogenic transformation, thereby providing experimental evidence for p53 being a tumor suppressor. In 1991, the Oren group reported that p53 can induce apoptosis in cancer cells. More recently, along with Dr. A. Levine, the Oren group first reported that p53 regulates the transcription of the Mdm2 gene and, along with Dr. K. Vousden, that the Mdm2 protein promotes the ubiquitination and degradation of p53, defining an autoregulatory loop that is of great importance in human cancer.

Website: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/
e-mail: moshe.oren@weizmann.ac.il

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Dr. Torben F. Ørntoft

Professor and Chair, Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Aarhus University hospital at Skejby, Aarhus, Denmark

Dr. Torben Ørntoft graduated as MD from the University of Aarhus. He was awarded the university's gold medal for research, and obtained his Doctoral thesis in 1990 based on studies of glycoconjugates in normal and cancer tissues, carried out in Seattle and London.

He was appointed chief physician in 1996 and took over as chairman of the Dept. of Clinical Biochemistry at Aarhus University hospital in 2000. He co-founded the CRO, AROS Applied Biotechnology Inc in 2000, is board member of the East Jutland Innovation Fund inc., and has been serving as scientific advisor for several biotechnology and diagnostic companies world wide.

He is at present Director of the Danish Research School in Molecular Cancer Research, and heads the Center for Molecular Clinical Cancer Research. He has been member of a number of scientific councils and boards in Europe and the US, and is on the board of a number of international journals.

Torben Ørntoft worked together with Henrik Clausen and Sen Hakomori in the 80's where they discovered dysregylated biosynthesis of glycoconjugates in bladder and colon cancer. In the late 90's Ørntoft pioneered the use of microarrays in translational cancer research in Europe and is currently heading four research groups in translational cancer research utilizing a plethora of genomic information (mainly from array platforms) as well as bioinformatics, to develop new biomarkers and new systems biology insight into bladder, colon and prostate cancer. The research activity is a Nordic Centre of Excellence in Molecular Medicine.

Website: www.mdl.dk
e-mail: orntoft@ki.au.dk

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Dr Jeffrey W. Pollard, Ph.D.

Deputy Director, Cancer Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Director, Center for the Study of Reproductive Biology and Women's Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

Since 2003, Dr Pollard is Deputy Director of the Cancer Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and also Director of the Center for the Study of Reproductive Biology and Women's Health of the same institute. He received his Ph.D. in 1975 while with the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, UK, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Ontario Cancer Institute, Canada (1975-1979). He returned to the UK to take up an appointment as lecturer at Kings's College, University of London (1980-1988). In 1988 he was appointed Associate Professor of the Department of Developmental and Molecular Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and became Professor of the department in 1993. In the same year also became Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Women's Health.

Dr Pollard's research interests focus on the role of the tumor micro-environment in modulating tumor progression and metastatic potential; tumor educated macrophages and cancer; mechanism of action of female sex steroid hormones in regulating cell proliferation in vitro; placental immunity.

Website: http://www.aecom.yu.edu/home
e-mail: pollard@aecom.yu.edu

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David Ransohoff

School of Medicine, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

David Ransohoff is a physician trained in clinical epidemiology (clinical epidemiology is the field of research methodology for questions about diagnosis, prognosis, and response to therapy). While training at Yale with one of the founders of the field of clinical epidemiology, he and his mentor Alvan Feinstein wrote a seminal paper about ''rules of evidence' to evaluate studies of diagnostic tests' (Ransohoff DF, Feinstein AR. Problems of spectrum and bias in evaluating the efficacy of diagnostic tests. N Engl J Med 1978; 299(17):926-930). Building on a research career about non-molecular diagnostic tests, he extended his work, beginning about 10 years ago, to include 'molecular markers for cancer.' He has worked in genomics (N Engl J Med 2004;351(26):2704-2714) and in proteomics (with NCI's Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) and Clinical Proteomic Technology Assessment for Cancer (CPTAC); work in publication and in preparation). His major interest is research methodology -- in translating or applying 'rules of evidence' that may improve methods to design, conduct, and interpret research about molecular markers for cancer. (Nat Rev Cancer 2004;4(4):309-314; Nat Rev Cancer 2005;5(2):142-149; J Clin Epidemiol 2007;60(12):1205-1219).

Website: http://www.med.unc.edu
e-mail: ransohof@med.unc.edu

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Ulrik Ringborg

Professor of Oncology, Director Cancer Center Karolinska, Stockholm, Sweden

Professor Ringborg was appointed Director of the Cancer Center, Karolinska, in 1994 and is also Senior physician and Professor of Oncology. His special mission is to coordinate the formation of a Comprehensive Cancer Center of all cancer activities at the Karolinska University Hospital and the Karolinska Institute.

He obtained his Ph.D. from the Karolinska Institute (1971) with a thesis on 'Nucleolar RNA Synthesis, processing and transport in salivary gland cells of Chironomus tentans' and this was shortly followed by his Med.Lic. degree and State registration as medical practitioner (1972).

He has held various appointments: Associate Professor of Histology, Karolinska Institute (1971); Associate Professor of General Oncology (1978), qualifying as an oncology specialist (1979); Consultant, Department of General Oncology, Radiumhemmet (1992); Professor of Oncology and Head of Department of Oncology, Karolinska Institute (1992).

Alongside his present directorship, he has held various other positions within the Cancer Center: Head Division of Oncology (1995-2003), Member of the Executive Group of the Karolinska Hospital (1996-2003), Head of the Oncologic Clinic of the new Karolinska University Hospital (2004-2005).

Professor Ringborg served as Chairman of the Swedish Melanoma Study Group (1976-2003), and as member of the Research Board and the Governing Body of the Stockholm Cancer Society, the Research Board and the Governing Body of the King Gustav V Jubilee Fund and member of the Nobel Assembly. Other appointments include: member of the Research Board and the Governing Body (Vice Chairman) of the Swedish Cancer Society; member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of EORTC; member of the Steering Group of NOCI, EORTC; Honorary member, the Radiological Society of North America. He was also President of the European Society of Skin Cancer Prevention (2002-2003) and President of the Organization of European Cancer Institutes.

He has authored 264 publications in international journals and books, with scientific focus on malignant melanoma.

Website: http://www.karolinska.se
e-mail: ulrik.ringborg@karolinska.se

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Professor Rajiv Sarin

Director of Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer, Tata Memorial Hospital, Navi Mumbai, India

Professor Sarin is also Professor of Radiation Oncology and In-Charge of the Cancer Genetics Unit at the Tata Memorial Hospital. Trained in Radiation Oncology and Clinical Oncology, he is a fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Oncology of the Royal College of Radiologists (London) and the American and European Societies for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology. His research interests include cancer genetics, breast cancer, brain tumors and developing and testing new technologies.

Website: http://www.actrec.gov.in
e-mail: rsarin@actrec.gov.in

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Hironobu Sasano

Professor, Department of Pathology, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan
Director, Department of Pathology, Tohoku University Hospital, Sendai, Japan

Education and Professional History
1982: graduated from Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan and obtained M.D.
1982: entered Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
1983 - 1985: trained as a Fulbright exchange research and clinical fellow at Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, Department of Pediatrics, The New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center, NY, USA.
1986: graduated from Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine and obtained Igaku-Hakushi, or Ph.D.
1986 - 1989: resident of anatomic pathology at The George Washington University Hospital, and assistant at Department of Pathology, The George Washington University Medical Center, Washington D.C., USA
1989 - 1998: Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology, Tohoku University School of Medicine and attending pathologist, Tohoku University Hospital, Sendai, Japan.
1998 - present: Professor, Department of Pathology, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan and Director, Department of Pathology, Tohoku University Hospital, Sendai, Japan

Research Interest: steroid biosynthesis, metabolism and actions, steroid dependent cancer.

Academic Societies:
U.S. Canadian Academy of Pathology
U.S. Canadian Academy of Pathology (regular member)
The Endocrine Society (regular member, Committee members)
International Society of Gynecological Pathology (regular member)
Japan Endocrine Pathology Society (Council, Executive Committee)
The Japan Endocrine Society (Council, Executive Committee)
Japanese Society of Gynecologic Oncology (Council, Executive Committee)
The Japanese Steroid Hormone Society (Council, Executive Committee)
The Japanese Pathology Society (Council, Executive Committee)
The Japanese Reproductive Endocrinology Society (Council, Executive Committee)
The Society of Cardiovascular Endocrinology and Metabolism (executive member)
The Japanese Cancer Association (exexutive member)
The International Society of Breast Pathology (regular member)

Website: http://www.med.tohoku.ac.jp/

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Guido Sauter

Director of the Institute of Pathology, University Medical Center
Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany.

Dr. Sauter's main fields of scientific work include molecular cytogenetics, urologic oncology, breast cancer and molecular screening methods. Dr Sauter started his scientific career 1991 as a visiting scientist at the University of California, San Francisco where he worked in the Laboratories of Fred Waldman and Joe Gray. During this time, he became involved in the early development FISH and CGH technology. He and his group subsequently did essential work in uncovering the genetic background of urinary bladder cancer. As a result of this work, Dr. Sauter was selected to edit the urinary bladder part of the 2004 WHO classification of genito-urinary cancers. More recently, prostate cancer has become a main focus of his work. His institute analyzes more than 1000 radical prostatectomy samples annually. A major contribution of Dr. Sauter is the tissue microarray (TMA) technique which his group developed jointly with Olli Kallioniemi's team at the NHGRI in Bethesda. Dr. Sauter's group manufactured TMAs containing more than 40,000 cancers and various large-scale studies are derived from his resource, mainly focussing on breast and prostate cancer. Ongoing research focuses on the evaluation of novel gene amlifications combining CGH arrays and tissue microarrays.

Guido Sauter has published more than 180 scientific papers and received several prizes including the Rudolph-Virchow Prize 1997 of the German Society for Pathology.

Website: http://www.uni-hamburg.de/
e-mail: g.sauter@uke.uni-hamburg.de

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Richard L. Schilsky, MD

Professor of Medicine, Associate Dean for Clinical Research, Biological Sciences Division, University of Chicago, USA

Dr. Schilsky earned his M.D. at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1975. Following a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Memorial Hospital, he received training in Medical Oncology and Clinical Pharmacology at the National Cancer Institute from 1977 to 1981. He then served as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine from 1981-1984 when he returned to the University of Chicago. At the University of Chicago, he served as Director of the Cancer Research Center from 1991-1999 and presently serves as Associate Dean for Clinical Research. Since 1995, Dr. Schilsky has also served as Chairman of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B.

An international expert in gastrointestinal malignancies and cancer pharmacology, he has served on a number of peer review and advisory committees for the NCI and the FDA. He has served as a member and Chair of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee for the FDA and as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Dr. Schilsky currently serves as a member of the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors, as a member of the NCI Clinical Trials Working Group, as a member of the NCI Translational Research Working Group and as a member of the NCI Clinical Trials Advisory Committee.

He is a member of the external advisory committees of several comprehensive cancer centers including the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the Mayo Cancer Center, the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He has also served as a member of the Selection Committee for the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research.

Dr. Schilsky is an Associate Editor of Clinical Cancer Research and Cancer and a member of the editorial board of Seminars in Oncology and the Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology. He has published more than 230 articles and book chapters in the medical literature and has edited 4 books.

Website: http://www.calgb.org
e-mail: rschilsk@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu

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Alan Spatz, MD

Head, Immunophenotype and Biopsies Unit, Institut Gustave-Roussy (IGR), Montreal, Canada

Alan Spatz is a pathologist and Head of the Immunophenotype and biopsies Unit at the Institut Gustave-Roussy (IGR), France. He received his medical degree (1992) and his pathology certification (1992) at the Paris University (PARIS XI). Dr Spatz is a member of numerous professional organizations including the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the International Academy of Pathology (IAP), and the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO). He has served EORTC in various capacities, such as Chairman of the EORTC Melanoma group, Chairman of the EORTC Pathology group, member of the Translational Research Advisory Committee, and co-Chairman of the US NIC-EORTC working group on tissue repositories. He has recently been elected member of the EORTC board.

Dr Spatz has participated in numerous international meetings, serving as faculty, discussant, and Session Chair. He is also the President of the French division of the IAP. He plays an active role in translational research, and has been particularly involved in the characterization of key molecular defects associated with melanoma progression ad pre-neoplasic changes associated with BRCA-1 related ovarian cancers. He ahs also directly contributed to the European standards for melanoma pathology report and the establishment of a clinical trials-related tissue bank within the EORTC.

In 2006 Dr Spatz was elected Chairman of the EORTC Melanoma group. The EORTC Melanoma group is the main melanoma clinical trial network in Europe and has a tracking record of fast accrual in stage III and stage IV melanomas.

Dr Spatz has served as author or co-author of 95 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and textbooks.

Website: http://www.igr.fr/
e-mail: alain.spatz@igr.fr

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Professor Ian Stratford

Professor of Pharmacy and Dean for Research
School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
University of Manchester, UK

Ian obtained a B.Sc in Chemistry from the University of Exeter and subsequently a PhD in Radiation Biology from Manchester University where he is now Professor of Pharmacy, Dean for Research and Head of the Experimental Oncology group in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Ian holds programme grant support from the Medical Research Council and, in addition, has substantive funding from the EU, the cancer charities and industry. He leads a tem of 20 post-graduates, technicians and research fellows. Ian was recently awarded honorary membership of the Royal College of Radiology.

Ian was until recently on the Executive and Board of European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer where he serves as Chairman of the Laboratory Research Division. He is a member of the scientific advisory board of the Association for International Cancer Research and on the Council of the International Association for Radiation Research. He is also a consultant for various pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Previously, Ian spent 10 years on the CRC (now CR-UK) project grants committee, was a member of the MRC Advisor Board, the executive of the British Association for Cancer Research and he served as of both the UK Association for Radiation Research and the radiobiology committee of the British Institute of Radiobiology.

Research Interest:
-Tumour hypoxia and manipulation of tumour oxygenation for therapeutic benefit
-Tumour biology, tumour physiology, anti-angiogenesis and vascular targeting
-Radiobiology (pre-clinical radiotherapy)
-Anti-cancer drug discovery, synthesis and evaluation
-Enzyme-directed drug activation for specific tumour therapy
-Gene therapy of cancer : Cell and molecular biology

Website: http://www.pharmacy.manchester.ac.uk/staff/stratford

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Fred C.G.J. Sweep, PhD

Professor Chemical Endocrinology and Head of Department, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Fred C.G.J. Sweep is professor of Chemical Endocrinology and head of the department of Chemical Endocrinology at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center. He is board certified in Clinical Chemistry and Endocrinology by the Netherlands Society for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, and registered as a European Clinical Chemist. He studied Medical Biology at the University of Utrecht (1979-1985), where he also obtained his PhD degree (1989) in Pharmacology. He had his training as a clinical chemist in Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center (1991-1995), where he also completed his training in Endocrinology (1998).

Professor Sweep is a reviewer of many journals, member of Editorial boards and has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific journal papers.

Fred Sweep is an active member of many different national and international societies devoted to cancer biomarkers. He is secretary of the PathoBiology Group of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and chairman of the Quality Assurance committee within this group. He also is member of the Translation Research Advisory Committee of the EORTC. In 2006 he chaired the 4th International NCI-EORTC Meeting on Molecular Markers in Cancer, in Atlanta, US. Fred Sweep's department has been developping international Quality Assurance programs for steroid hormone receptors and other biomarkers since 1975. In the early nineties more than 160 laboratories worldwide participated in these programs. Last year's QA programs are running for large multicenter prospective clinical trials on biomarkers in Europe. His current research interests are focused on development of new antibody based assays for biomarkers in oncology with emphasis on proteases and angiogenesis. Within the field of Endocrinology Sweep's department has a long-standing expertise in thyroid and steroid hormones with special interest in the hypothalamus-pituitary adrenal/gonadal axis.

Website: http://www.umcn.nl
e-mail: f.sweep@ace.umcn.nl

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Professor David Tarin

Professor of Pathology, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA

David Tarin began his research career in 1960 using one of the first electron microscopes installed in Britain to study collagen formation in the skin of Amphioxus, a marine protochordate. Having graduated with a Science degree from the University of Leeds, he went on to study Medicine at the University of Oxford graduating in 1963. He then held Faculty appointments as a surgical pathologist at teaching hospitals in the Universities of Birmingham and Leeds and at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, University of London from 1965 to 1979. During this period he focused and on basic science research on cancer, developmental biology and wound healing and demonstrated interactions between tumor cells and neighboring host tissues, leading to the development of the concept of the tumor micro-environment (summarized in Tarin, D. Tissue interactions in Carcinogenesis Academic Press, London 1972).

In 1979 he moved to Oxford University where he became Nuffield Professor of Pathology, Director of the Cancer Diagnosis and Metastasis Research Laboratory and Attending Surgical Pathologist to the United Oxford Hospitals. There he founded and served as chairman and coordinator of the Oxford Breast Diseases Group for 18 years. This consortium of surgeons, medical oncologists, radiotherapists, radiologists and pathologists met weekly to decide the management and care for each breast cancer patient referred to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. The aim was to bring patients the benefits of a caring, coordinated and multidisciplinary team approach to cancer care. Concurrently he conducted research on mechanisms of cancer metastasis (see Tarin et al. 1984, Cancer Res 44:3584 3592) and early cancer detection using molecular markers such as CD44 (Matsumura et al,1992, Lancet 340:1053 1058).

In 1997 he moved to the University of California, San Diego where he became Director of the UCSD Cancer Center and Associate Dean for Cancer Affairs at UCSD School of Medicine. Here he oversaw the creation of the John and Rebecca Moores, UCSD Cancer Center in a dedicated new building and secured designation of this institute as one of 37 elite Comprehensive Cancer Centers recognized by the National Cancer Institute of the United States. After this he relinquished the Directorship in 2003 to return to research, clinical interests and teaching as a Professor in the Department of Pathology at UCSD.

Tarin's laboratory research has recently focused on the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the spread of cancer in the human body (metastasis), and genes that program tumor cells to thus colonize distant organ (see Montel et al. Am J Path. 2005, 166:1565-1579; Montel et al. 2006, Int J Cancer 119, 251-263 ;Suzuki et al 2006, Am J Path.169:673-81. His clinical research has concentrated on using the exceptionally sensitive, non-invasive methods now available in molecular genetics to facilitate early cancer diagnosis. Woodman et al. 2000, Clin Canc Res. 6:2381-2392

He is the former president of the International Society of Differentiation, and has served on the editorial boards of several journals, including Cancer Research, Journal of Clinical Pathology, Journal of Pathology, Differentiation, and Molecular Diagnosis. He has been a scientific referee for various peer-reviewed international journals including Nature, Science, Lancet and the British Journal of Cancer.

Website: http://medicine.ucsd.edu/molpath/
e-mail: dtarin@ucsd.edu

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Dr Sheila Taube

Associate Director, Cancer Diagnosis Program (CDP), National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Dr Taube is the Associate Director for the Cancer Diagnosis Program (CDP) of the National Cancer Institute. She launched the Program for the Assessment of Clinical Cancer Tests (PACCT) in September, 2000. This program is designed to ensure efficient and effective translation of new knowledge and technology related to cancer diagnosis into clinical practice. PACCT was instrumental in developing the first prospective trial of a molecular signature for benefit of chemotherapy in early stage breast cancer, the TAILORx trial, which opened in 2006.

Dr. Taube serves on the American Society of Clinical Oncology's Expert Panel to develop practice guidelines for tumor markers. She co-edited a special issue of Seminars in Oncology devoted to tumor markers. Dr. Taube collaborated with the EORTC to launch the series of international meetings, Molecular Markers for Cancer: From Discovery to Clinical Practice. She and a colleague developed the syllabus for a course for industry, "From Hypothesis to Product: an EORTC-NCI Diagnostics Development Tutorial."

Website: http://www.cancerdiagnosis.nci.nih.gov/
e-mail: st29f@nih.gov

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Professor Thomas Tursz

Professor Thomas Tursz

Director, Institut Gustave-Roussy (IGR), Villejuif, France (since October 1994)
Director of the Doctoral School of Oncology: "Biology-Medicine-Health" since 2000
President of the French Federation of Comprehensive Anticancer Centres (FNCLCC) since 2004
Chairman SAC of the EORTC (since 2003) and Vice-President of EORTC Board since 2006
President of the OECI (2002-2005) and Chairman

Professor Thomas Tursz was born in Krakow, Poland in 1946. Thomas Tursz is both a medical oncologist and a researcher. He was the Director of the CNRS** Biology of Tumours Laboratory (URA CNRS 1156) at the IGR from 1984 to 1996 and Head of the Department of Medicine from 1992-1994. He was President of the International Association for Research on the Epstein-Barr Virus and Associated Diseases from 1994 to 1996. From the clinical point of view, his Department has conducted several important trials in breast, lung cancer and soft tissue sarcomas and was a pioneer in France of cytokines and gene therapy in human clinical trials. Former Secretary of the Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group of the EORTC, he was Chairman of this Group from 1993 to 1996. In 1994, the first trial on gene therapy in lung cancer using a recombinant adenovirus was initiated in his department at the Institut Gustave Roussy. His work has been awarded several prestigious scientific prizes such as the Oncology Award "Prix de Cancérologie" from the French National League Against Cancer in 1979, the Bernard-Halpern Immunology Award in 1983, the Rosen Oncology Award from the Medical Research Foundation in 1989 and the Grand Prix in Oncology from the Academy of Medicine in 1992, the Hamilton Fairley Award for Clinical Research from the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) in 1998 and the Prix de Rayonnement Français in 2001. He is the author of 350 international papers in peer-reviewed journals including Sciences, Nature, PNAS, JNCI, JCO, J. Biol. Chem., EMBO J., Lancet, Lancet Oncology, Brit Med J.

Website: http://www.igr.fr

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Dr. Mark Tykocinski

Dean, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Dr. Mark L. Tykocinski serves as Dean of Jefferson Medical College and Senior Vice President of Thomas Jefferson University. He also is President of Jefferson University Physicians, the faculty practice plan. As Dean of Jefferson Medical College, Dr. Tykocinski has primary responsibility for the quality of the school's medical education. In addition, he guides the research mission of the college and its nearly 1,000 full-time faculty. Before his current appointment in 2008, Dr. Tykocinski was professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine for 10 years. Under his leadership, the department now ranks first in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding among departments of pathology in the country. Dr. Tykocinski built a comprehensive clinical services infrastructure at Penn, encompassing clinical laboratory and tissue diagnostics and transfusion medicine. His department also featured leading residency and fellowship programs, considered by many to be among the top in the country. Dr. Tykocinski holds several research patents in the fields of molecular and cellular immunology. His work has focused on the design of novel fusion proteins with immunotherapeutic potential, as well as unique cellular engineering strategies that invoke these proteins. In his career, he also pioneered a novel class of eukaryotic expression vectors, which are now widely used by other laboratories around the world. He is the President of the Association of Pathology Chairs, and is past-president of the American Society for Investigative Pathology. In 1995, Dr. Tykocinski was honored with the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Award for Outstanding Research from the American Society for Investigative Pathology. Dr. Tykocinski earned a bachelor of arts degree in biology magna cum laude from Yale University and was awarded his medical degree from New York University. He completed an internal medicine internship at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City and residency training in anatomic pathology in the Department of Pathology at New York University.

Website: http://www.upenn.edu/
e-mail: Mark.Tykocinski@uphs.upenn.edul

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Mathias Uhlen

Professor of Microbiology, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden

Mathias Uhlen is Professor of Microbiology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. Dr Uhlen is member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science (IVA), the Royal Swedish Academy of Science (KVA) and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). He is Vice-President of the European Proteomics Association (EuPA) and member of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) council. He was Vice-President of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), responsible for external relations, from 1999 to 2001 and he was the chairman of the Swedish Biochemical and Molecular Biology Society (SFMB) from 1994 to 1999. Dr Uhlen has more than 290 publications in bioscience with the focus on the development and use of affinity reagents in biotechnology and biomedicine.

In the early eighties, Dr Uhlen cloned and characterized staphylococcal protein A, which is now used extensively for purification of antibodies both in diagnostics and therapy. He showed in 1983, for the first time, the principle of affinity capture of fusion proteins. The use of affinity tags for purification of recombinant proteins are now widely used in bioscience. In the late eighties, Uhlen published the use of magnetic micro spheres with streptavidin for automated solid phase applications. Such laboratory systems based on streptavidin beads are at present frequently used both in research and diagnostics. In the 90:s, his group described a new principle for affinity reagents, called Affibodies, and showed their use as research tool and recently as potential cancer therapeutics. Uhlen and colleagues also developed a new strategy for DNA analysis called Pyrosequencing, a method that has recently been further developed by a US company (454) into a highly parallelized sequencing instrument.

Dr Uhlen is currently working on the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) program, with the aim to systematically map the human proteome. In October 2006, version 2.0 of the Protein Atlas was published (www.proteinatlas.org) with more than 1.2 million high-resolution images representing 1,359 human proteins. He has founded several companies, including Pyrosequencing AB (Biotage AB), Affibody AB, SweTreeGenomics AB, Magnetic Biosolutions AB, Creative Peptides AB and Atlas Antibodies AB. He has received numerous awards, including The Svedberg prize in 1992, the Göran Gustavsson prize in 1993, the gold medal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 2004, the Most Noble Order of the Seraphim - the Order of His Majesty the King in 2004, the Jerker Porath award and the Akzo Nobel Award in 2005 and the HUPO Distinguished Achievement Award in 2006.

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Axel Ullrlich, PhD

Research Director, Singapore OncoGenome Project, Centre for Molecular Medicine, A*STAR
Director, Molecular Biology, Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry, Germany

Professor Axel Ullrich was trained as a biochemist at the University of Tuebingen (Germany) and earned a Ph.D. in Heidelberg in Molecular Genetics in 1975. After a postdoctoral tenure at the University of California, San Francisco, he joined Genentech in 1978. His work in the field of signal transduction research has elucidated major fundamental molecular mechanisms that govern the physiology of normal cells and allow insights into patho-physiological mechanisms of major human diseases such as cancer.

For over 30 years Professor Ullrich has been a leader in gene-technology, translating basic science discoveries into medical applications. This led in the mid eighties to the development of Humulin (human insulin for the treatment of diabetes; Lilly), the first therapeutic agent to be developed through gene-based technology and the first biotechnology product ever. Another biotech product that is based on Professor Ullrich's work is Herceptin, the first target-directed, gene discovery-based cancer therapy for the treatment of metastatic breast carcinoma (Genentech/Roche). His third contribution to biomedicine, SU11248/SUTENT, was conceived on the basis of discoveries in his laboratory at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry and developed by SUGEN/Pharmacia and Pfizer. It was recently approved by the FDA (1/2006) and the EMEA (7/2006) for the treatment of Gastro Intestinal Stromal Tumors and Renal Cell Carcinoma (Pfizer).

Since 1988, Professor Ullrich has been Director of the Department of Molecular Biology at the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried and in addition since 2004 he is Research Director of the Singapore OncoGenome Project. He is an Honorary Professor of the Second Military Medical University (Shanghai, China) and the University of Tuebingen (Germany) and elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the German Academy of Natural Scientists "Leopoldina" and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS).

Among numerous other honors and awards, Professor Ullrich received the Robert Koch Prize the Bruce F. Cain Memorial Award of the American Association of Cancer Research and the King Faisal Prize of Medicine. Because of his major contributions to Science he has been appointed to advisory boards of internationally renowned institutions such as the Wistar Institute (USA), the Biomedicum (Finland), the Max-Delbrueck-Center for Molecular Medicine (Germany) and the International Advisory Council of the EDB (Singapore). His scientific work has been published in more than 500 articles in international journals and with over 58,000 citations he is one of the ten most cited scientists over the past 25 years worldwide.

Professor Ullrich has been a leader in international Biotechnology development with activities stretching from Germany, to the USA, Singapore and Australia. He is co-founder of three Biotech companies - SUGEN Inc. (USA), Axxima Pharmaceuticals AG (Germany), U3 Pharma AG (Germany) and Kinaxo (Germany). In addition he has served on numerous Boards of Directors and Science Advisory Boards of Biotech companies including SUGEN, Inc. (USA), BioImage (Denmark), Bionomics (Australia), Cryptome Pharmaceuticals (Australia) and S*Bio (Singapore) and pharmaceutical companies (Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany).

Since 2000 he is a Biotech Advisor of the Economic Development Board of the Singapore Government and its Biotech Investment organization, BioOneCapital. Moreover, he is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Bavarian Biotech Management Company Bio^M. In 2001 Time Magazine Europe has named Professor Ullrich as one of 25 European "tech leaders who are changing how we work, live and play".

Website: http://www.a-star.edu.sg/astar/ and http://www.mpg.de/english/portal/index.html
e-mail: ullrich@biochem.mpg.de

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Dr. Nicole Urban

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC), Seattle, WA, USA

Dr. Urban has been working to reduce mortality from breast and ovarian cancer for over 15 years, studying ways to improve the use, performance and efficacy of breast and ovarian cancer screening tools including mammography and the blood test CA125. She is particularly interested in the discovery, development and validation of novel markers detectable in serum, for use in cancer risk assessment and screening. She is best known for her evaluation of candidate serum markers for ovarian cancer, including HE4 and Mesothelin, and her analysis of the cost-effectiveness of screening for ovarian cancer.

Dr. Urban earned her BA from Simmons College in 1970, and in 1973 earned a MS in Biostatistics followed by a ScD in 1978 in Health Services and Biostatistics, both from the Harvard School of Public Health. She joined the University of Washington in 1978 where she is Professor of Health Services Research, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in 1984 where she heads the Gynecologic Cancer Research Program and is a Member of the Molecular Diagnostics Program in the Public Health Sciences Division. In 1999 she was awarded a Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Ovarian Cancer by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to conduct translational research that is now in its eighth year of funding. In 2002 she was awarded a Center for the Evaluation of Biomarkers for the Early Detection of Breast Cancer by the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research.

Website: http://www.fhcrc.org/
e-mail: nurban@fhcrc.orgl

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Jane E Visvader, PhD

Laboratory Head, Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Jane Visvader heads the developmental and molecular biology group in the Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium, located at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. Her research has focussed on understanding the epithelial hierarchy in the breast tissue and cell types that are predisposed to oncogenesis. This work has led to the prospective isolation of mouse mammary stem cells and luminal progenitor cells, thus providing a fundamental base for future studies in this field. Another major objective of the laboratory is to define transcription factors important for normal mammary gland development and perturbations that arise in breast cancer. A long-standing interest in transcriptional regulators has resulted in important findings in hematopoiesis and mammary development. Jane has been awarded a NHMRC (Australia) Senior Research Fellowship and serves on the Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee of the Cancer Council, Victoria.

Jane completed her PhD in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Adelaide, and has held postdoctoral positions at the Salk Institute, San Diego and Childrens' Hospital, Boston/Harvard Medical School.

Website: http://www.wehi.edu.au/jane_visvader

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Otmar D. Wiestler, M.D.

German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
Chairman and Scientific Member of the Management Board
Heidelberg, Germany

Otmar D. Wiestler was born in Freiburg, Germany on November 6, 1956. He studied Medicine at the University of Freiburg and received his M.D. in 1984. From 1984 to 1987 he worked as postdoc at the Department of Pathology, University of California in San Diego / USA. After a four year period as senior resident and assistant Professor in Neuropathology at the University of Zurich / Switzerland, he moved to the University of Bonn in 1992, where he was appointed as Professor of Neuropathology and Head of the Department of Neuropathology. At this University, he established a major neuroscience research center. In January 2004 he joined the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ) in Heidelberg as Chairman and Scientific Member of the Management Board.

Otmar D. Wiestler has served on a number of scientific and professional boards, as Head of the German Brain Tumor Reference Center in Bonn, Chairman of the BONFOR research committee at the University of Bonn, President of the German Society of Neuropathology and Neuroanatomy, Head of the Review Board Theoretical Medicine of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Member of the Medical Advisory Board of Deutsche Krebshilfe (German Cancer Aid) and as CEO of the Life & Brain Neuroscience platform in Bonn.

Otmar D. Wiestler contributed more than 300 papers and book chapters to the scientific literature. He has also served as an editorial board member of several international journals, among them Acta Neuropathologica (Editor), Brain Pathology Cancer Letters, Carcinogenesis, Journal of Neurology, Neuropathology & Applied Neurobiology.

Since 2001 he is an elected member of the German Life Science Academy LEOPOLDINA.

Website: http://www.dkfz.de/
e-mail: o.wiestler@dkfz.de

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Yosef Yarden, PhD

Professor, Department of Biological Regulation, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Yosef Yarden is professor in the Department of Biological Regulation at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. He received his BSc at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and his PhD at the Weizmann Institute. He trained at Genetech Inc. and in the Whitehead Institute (MIT) before establishing his own laboratory at the Weizmann Institute. Dr Yarden's research career has been devoted to understanding the role of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) in human cancer. He has been involved in many crucial developments in this field, including purification and molecular cloning of the first RTKs, namely the EGF-receptor, c-Kit, PDGF-receptor and several receptors for FGFs. In addition, he discovered the neuregulin family of growth factors. On the functional aspect of RTKs, he discovered the universal initiating step of signaling, namely the process of receptor dimerization. In this context, Yarden resolved the role of HER2 in tumor development as a shared herterodimerizing subunit of other receptors. He also discovered the last step in RTK signaling, namely the process leading to receptor ubiquitinylation and sorting for degradation in lysosomes. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and the Asia-Pacific International Molecular Biology Network. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the H. Dudley Wright Research Award in Biomembranes, the Somech Sachs Prize in Chemistry, the Andre Lwoff Prize, the Lombroso Award for Cancer Research, the Michael Bruno Prize, the Teva Founders' Prize, and the MERIT Award of the U.S. National Cancer Institute. Currently, Dr. Yarden is the Dean of the Feinberg Graduate School. In the past he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Director of the M.D. Moross Cancer Research Institute, and Dean of the Faculty of Biology.

Website: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/Biological_Regulation/
e-mail: yosef.yarden@weizmann.ac.il

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Professor John Yates

Departments of Chemical Physiology and Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA

John Yates received his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Virginia under Professor Donald Hunt. His graduate research involved the development and application of tandem mass spectrometry for sequence analysis of proteins. Following a Biotechnology Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, he moved to the Department of Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Washington where he attained the tenured rank of Associate Professor. He is now a Professor in the Departments of Chemical Physiology and Cell Biology at The Scripps Research Institute. His research interests include development of integrated methods for tandem mass spectrometry analysis of protein mixtures, bioinformatics using mass spectrometry data, and proteomics. He is the lead inventor of the SEQUEST software for correlating tandem mass spectrometry data to sequences in the database and principle developed of the shotgun proteomics technique for the analysis of protein mixtures. He has received the American Society for Mass Spectrometry research award, the Pehr Edman Award in Protein Chemistry, the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Biemann Medal, the HUPO Distinguished Achievement Award in Proteomics, Herbert Sober Award from the ASBMB, and the Christian Anfinsen Award from The Protein Society. He has published over 325 scientific articles.

e-mail: jyates@scripps.edu

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Timothy J. Yeatman, MD

Professor of Surgery and Interdisciplinary Oncology, Associate Center Director for Translational Research, and Director of Total Cancer Care at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute Tampa, Florida, USA

Dr. Yeatman has focused his research on the management of gastrointestinal malignancies with a special research emphasis on using genome scale microarrays to identify the molecular signatures of cancer that provide diagnosis, prognosis and response to therapy. He found that microarray was 88 percent accurate in predicting all tumor types. The results of his investigation, the first such work to be reported in this depth, appeared in the January 2004 issue of the American Journal of Pathology. Recently, Dr. Yeatman has been appointed to the Directorship of Total Cancer Care, a large research project that will lead to personalized cancer care. Dr. Yeatman has received numerous honors and awards including the James IV Association of Surgeons Traveling Fellowship, Europe 2001; the Center Director's Award for Outstanding Research at Moffitt Cancer Center (1998, 1997, 1995); and the James Ewing Foundation Trainee Award, Society of Surgical Oncology, 1997. Additionally, Dr. Yeatman has published more than 120 articles in the top peer-reviewed journals in his field including the prestigious Nature Genetics, Nature Reviews Cancer, as well as the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and Cancer Research. Dr. Yeatman has been continuously funded over the course of the past 12 years through grants from the NCI and the American Cancer Society. Dr. Yeatman earned his M.D. at Emory University; Surgical Internship & Residency at the University of Florida; and Surgical Oncology Fellowship at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Website: http://www.moffittcancercenter.com/
e-mail: yeatman@moffitt.usf.edu

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Dr Qimin Zhan

Vice President of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Peking, China

Dr Zhan is also the Director of the National Laboratory of Molecular Oncology and the Chief Scientist of 973 the National Fundamental Program (cancer research field). He received his medical degree in Suzhou University Medical College in 1982 and completed his graduate study in the Peking Union Medical College in 1987. From 1989-1995, Dr. Zhan had his postdoctoral training in the University of California San Francisco, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and the National Cancer Institute, NIH. In 1996, he was promoted to Senior Staff Fellow in the National Cancer Institute, NIH. In 1998, Dr. Zhan started to serve in the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute as a Principal Investigator and a tenure-track faculty in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Department of Radiation Oncology and the Department of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry. In 2003, he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Dr. Zhan took a position at CAMS in early 2002, and he is currently a Professor in Peking Union Medical College and a Senior Investigator in Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Cancer Institute, Beijing, China. Over the past several years, he obtained the scholarship of "Changjiang Scholar Program" and National Outstanding Youth Funding. Dr. Zhan's research interest focuses on the molecular pathways involved in the control of cell cycle checkpoint and apoptosis after DNA damage. He is also interested in signalling pathways involved in regulation of stress-inducible genes. His research had successfully attracted multiple grants from extramural funding agencies, including National Institutes of Health (NIH R01), Department of Defence (DOD grant) and American Cancer Society during his appointment in the States.

Dr. Zhan's has totally published 65 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Most of his publications are in prestigious journals, including Cell, Journal of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Science, Cancer Research, Oncogene, Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Zhan has been the first or corresponding author in 25 papers of his total publications and many of his papers have been highly cited in the biomedical field. Currently, his publications have been cited more than 7000 times (SCI database), including a single paper citation as high as 2600 times. Dr. Zhan has also been invited to present his work at a number of universities, professional meetings and grand rounds. He is a member in the editorial board for Journal of Cancer Biology and Therapy and a reviewer for Cancer Research, Oncogene, Journal of Molecular Pharmacology, Experimental Cell Research, Radiation Research, and Mutation Research. Dr. Zhan is also a member of the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Website: : http://www.cams.ac.cn/
e-mail: Zhanquimin@pumc.edu.cn

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