To augment our science team’s capabilities, we have created a Scientific Advisory Board. These individuals have deep experience in a variety of areas.
Manfred Auer, PhD
Dr. Auer is Research Professor of Chemical and Translational Biology of the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance at the University of Edinburgh. In his lab, he links basic research and applied science by developing and running new miniaturized target, compound and technology platforms comprising all steps from design, theoretical and experimental target analysis, high throughput chemical synthesis and screening, to quantitative mechanistic studies of compound action in cells and model organisms. Before moving to academia, Dr. Auer spent 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry, including service as Executive Director of the Innovative Screening Technologies unit within the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research.
Adam Brufsky, MD, PhD
Dr. Brufsky is Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and serves as the Associate Division Chief for the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine. Dr. Brufsky is the Medical Director of the Magee-Women’s Cancer Program, part of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center; Associate Director for Clinical Investigations at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center; and Co-director of the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center. An active researcher, Dr. Brufsky has numerous abstracts and research articles in leading journals, and is Principal Investigator on several research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, Susan G. Komen Foundation, and U.S. Army—Breast Cancer Research Program.
Edward Greeno, MD
Dr. Greeno is Medical Director of the Hematology/Oncology Clinic at the University of Minnesota and an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He has been listed as one of the Best Doctors in America for a number for years.
Sara Hurvitz, MD
Dr. Hurvitz is Director, Breast Cancer Clinical Research Programs at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She is also the Co-director of the Santa Monica-UCLA Outpatient Hematology/Oncology Practice and Medical Director of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center Clinical Research Unit. Dr. Hurvitz is interested in designing and implementing phase I and II (translational) breast cancer clinical trials. Dr. Hurvitz is also interested in studying the gene expression patterns in a variety of breast cancer populations, and evaluating these patterns to detect new subtypes of breast cancer that may be more accurately targeted by novel therapies.
Benita Katzenellenbogen, PhD
Dr. Katzenellenbogen is the Swanlund Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and the Swanlund Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Illinois School of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Her research interests include regulation of gene expression, signal transduction, and cell proliferation and phenotypic properties by hormones and growth factors, as well as biomarker discovery and cellular changes underlying resistance to therapeutic agents in breast cancer.
John Katzenellenbogen, PhD
Dr. Katzenellenbogen is Research Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, an Affiliate of the Beckman Institute and Department of Bioengineering, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research has focused on aspects of the structure, function and the use of steroid receptors, and includes biochemical and biophysical studies on the dynamics of the estrogen receptors and their interaction with coregulator proteins.
Hung Khong, MD
Dr. Khong is an Associate Professor, Medical Oncology at the University of South Florida College of Medicine Moffitt Cancer Center. He specializes in the treatment of breast cancer of all stages. He is interested in combining treatment methods such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy with immunotherapy and chemotherapy with targeted therapy. Dr. Khong has developed several innovative clinical trials for the neoadjuvant treatment of stages II and II breast cancer, and first-line therapy for metastatic breast cancer. He leads an innovative clinical trial that is the first in the country to combine endocrine therapy and checkpoint inhibitors in the neoadjuvant treatment of hormone-receptor positive breast cancer.
Carol Lange, PhD
Dr. Lange is Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Minnesota. She is also Endowed Chair of the Tickle Family Land Grant in Breast Cancer Research and Director of the Women’s Cancer Program at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Lange studies the molecular biology of breast cancer. Her laboratory is focused on the study of cross-talk between peptide growth factors and steroid hormone receptors in human breast cancer cells, with the goal of developing better strategies for the treatment of breast and other hormonally influenced and/or epithelial cell-derived cancers.
Bora Lim, MD
Dr. Lim is an Assistant Professor of Breast Medical Oncology in the Section of Translational Breast Cancer Research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is a translational investigator researching novel therapeutic strategies to halt or treat aggressive breast cancer by apoptosis (effective cancer cell-killing) induction. She studies new ways of delivering these novel agents and determining target populations using new diagnostic methods such as liquid biopsy and single-cell genomics. Dr. Lim actively runs five active investigator-initiated clinical trials and associated biomarker studies.
Stanley Marks, MD
Dr. Marks is Chairman of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), Hillman Cancer Center and serves as Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at UPMC Shadyside. Dr. Marks also is the Medical Director of Forbes Hospice and Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Marks served as President of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and President and Chairman of the Allegheny County Medical Society. He served on the Board of directors of the American Cancer Society. Dr. Marks has authored numerous publications.
Ron McGlennen, MD
Dr. McGlennen is President and Medical Director of Access Genetics, a molecular diagnostics company he cofounded in 2001. Previously he was an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota. He also serves as Celcuity’s Laboratory Medical Director.
Alberto Montero, MD, MBA, CPHQ
Dr. Montero is clinical director of the Breast Cancer Medical Oncology Program at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center and an associate professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He has experience designing and performing cost-effective decision analyses in the oncology field. Dr. Montero has over a decade of experience in all aspects of clinical research from clinical trial design, protocol development, and in the capacity as a principal investigator.
Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD
Dr. Park an internationally renowned breast cancer expert, was recently appointed as the co-leader of the Breast Cancer Research Program, Associate Director for Translational Research and Director of Precision Oncology at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Dr. Park is from Saginaw, MI and received his bachelor’s degree from The University of Chicago and then completed a dual MD-PhD training program at The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. After completing a residency in Internal Medicine and Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Training at The Hospital of The University of Pennsylvania, he finished a postdoctoral research fellowship in cancer genetics in the laboratory of Dr. Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins University, and then joined the faculty in 2002 in the Breast Cancer Program. At Hopkins he was Professor of Oncology, Associate Director for Education and Research Training, as well as Associate Dean for Postdoctoral Affairs prior to joining the faculty at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Mark Pegram, MD, PhD
Dr. Pegram is the first director of the Breast Cancer Oncology Program at Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, and the co-director of Stanford’s Molecular Therapeutics Program. Dr. Pegram commitment to translational science includes having played a major role in developing the drug Herceptin® as a treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer. His laboratory experiments demonstrated that combining Herceptin with chemotherapy effectively killed cancer cells that overproduced the growth factor HER2. Dr. Pegram and others then conducted clinical trials showing that Herceptin improved survival rates and even cured some breast cancer patients. Dr. Pegram’s current research efforts include a continued focus on the cancer-associated gene that encodes HER2 and developing new ways to target cancer cells expressing this protein. Dr. Pegram has numerous publications to his credit.
Mothaffar F. Rimawi, MD
Dr. Rimawi is an Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Research at the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor College of Medicine. He also serves as the Executive Medical Director and Co-Leader of the Breast Cancer Program at the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine. His research is focused on translating laboratory findings to the clinic to develop new treatments for breast cancer.
Lee S. Schwartzberg, MD, FACP
Dr. Schwartzberg is the Executive Director of West Cancer Center and founding member of West Clinic, a multispecialty oncology practice affiliated with the University of Tennessee. He also serves as Professor of Medicine and Division Chief of Hematology/Oncology at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center. His major research interests are new therapeutic approaches to breast cancer, targeted therapy and supportive care. He has published more than 150 research papers during his oncology career.