8 Duke physicians honored at ASCO gathering

posted June 7th, 2010

Eight Duke physicians received special recognition at this year’s meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

Harvey Cohen, M.D. director of the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, received the B.J. Kennedy Award and Lecture for Scientific Excellence in Geriatric Oncology. Cohen chairs the Cancer in the Elderly Committee for Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB), and co-chairs the Task Force on Cancer and Aging for the American Association for Cancer Research. He has published extensively with more than 300 articles and book chapters on topics in geriatrics and hematology/oncology, with special emphasis on aspects of cancer and immunologic disorders in the elderly, and geriatric assessment. His current interests are geriatric assessment, biologic basis for functional decline,

ASCO also recognized Gary Lyman, M.D., for his long service to the organization by presenting him with a 2010 Statesman Award. The Statesman Award is reserved for volunteers who have given at least 20 years of service to the Society. Over the past two decades Lyman has served as chair or member of multiple clinical practice guidelines panels and committees. He is also associate editor for ASCO’s Journal of Oncology Practice.

David Kirsch M.D., Ph.D., is one of three recipients of an Advanced Clinical Research Award. The award is given to physicians with at least five years’ experience working in a clinical setting or academic medical center and who actively involved in important, but unfunded studies. The award gives Kirsch $450,000 over three years to support his efforts to design a new molecular imaging device that could potentially spot in real time any residual cancer cells near the surgical site.

Two Duke physicians are also among the 46 recipients of ASCO’s Young Investigator awards this year. A. Paiman Ghafoori, M.D., and Nicole Kuderer, M.D., will each receive a one-year award of $50,000 to support initial research in clinical oncology. Kuderer is involved in developing a genomic signature linked to thrombosis. Ghafoori is studying how tumors in mice respond to radiation.

The ASCO Foundation also gave merit awards to 100 young physicians whose abstracts or program submissions were deemed especially noteworthy. Kristin Higgins, M.D., earned the Bradley Stuart Beller Merit Award for authoring the abstract that received the highest scientific score overall. Her abstract detailed newly-identified cellular changes involved in metastasis. Yannis Bellil, M.D., and Marvaretta Stevenson, M.D., also received Merit Awards for their presentations related to molecular markers linked to the spread of lung cancer.