Scientific Advisory Board

In the war against lung cancer, Dr. Rudin is staging a strategic multi-pronged attack on the disease. A world-renowned researcher, Dr. Rudin conducts basic science research, develops cutting edge translational therapeutics, and treats lung cancer patients.

As Chief of the Thoracic Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Rudin utilizes his exceptional skills to effectively blend basic science and translational research. By using fresh tumor samples from the patient clinic across the street from his laboratory, Dr. Rudin’s team studies lung cancer and develops novel therapeutics in the lab. These techniques are then taken back to the clinic to be tested in patients who are participating in early stage clinical trials. It is a powerful cycle.

Already his laboratory has run numerous clinical trials looking at novel therapeutics in lung cancer patients. One of his exciting findings is a virus that targets small cell lung cancer. This groundbreaking work has prompted a national clinical trial to consider the possibility of using this virus to help specifically target and kill lung cancer cells. The blood and tumor samples from this trial are returning to Dr. Rudin’s laboratory so that his team can study the effects of the virus on lung cancer and conduct correlative analyses.

In this way, Dr. Rudin’s lab is creating real-time, parallel developments in the laboratory and the clinic that may be the foundation for major breakthroughs in lung cancer care.

While Dr. Rudin is working to develop therapeutics in the laboratory, he also treats patients on a regular basis. Dr. Rudin, a member of LUNGevity’s Scientific Advisory Board, knows that by the time lung cancer is detected, it’s usually too late. “To really have an impact, early detection is going to be essential,” says Dr. Rudin. “A recent national lung cancer screening trial showed that early detection is possible and it can have an impact on mortality rates, but it’s not enough…We need better, cheaper early detection techniques that can be used to screen all people.”

The development of detection techniques and therapeutics costs money. Sadly, there is a huge disparity between lung cancer research funding and research funding for other cancers, such as breast and prostate cancer, says Dr. Rudin. But that is where organizations like LUNGevity make a large impact. “Funding from LUNGevity really complements the federal funding system and helps to improve outcomes for lung cancer patients.”

Dr. Rudin’s complex, multi-pronged attack on lung cancer is based on a very simple idea – saving lives. “Every week I see patients with this disease. Every week patients suffer relapses. I have watched too many lung cancer patients die. I am trying to change the outcome for patients with this disease.”

Please find more information on Dr. Rudin here.

Dr. Brahmer's research and clinical practice focuses on the development of new therapies, including immunotherapies, for the treatment and prevention of lung cancer and mesothelioma. She was involved in the phase 1 trial of the PD-1 blocking antibody, nivolumab. Dr. Brahmer is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) Thoracic Committee and Cancer Prevention Steering Committee.

Read more about Dr. Brahmer here.

She has a bachelor's in molecular biology from Princeton University and a master's in cancer biology, with a specialization in patient-based research, from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She also serves on the faculty of MD Anderson UTHealth Graduate School.

Dr. Byers earned her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine. Following her internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, she returned to her home state of Texas for oncology fellowship training at MD Anderson. In 2010, Dr. Byers joined the faculty at MD Anderson. Using proteomic, gene expression, and genomic profiling assays, she has identified several promising molecular targets for treating lung cancer. These include the identification of poly ADP-ribose polymerase 1 (PARP1) and other genes involved in repairing DNA damage as novel therapeutic targets for small cell lung cancer (SCLC).

A world-class clinical and translational investigator, she currently leads several clinical trials testing PARP inhibitors and novel immunotherapy approaches for patients with recurrent SCLC.

Dr. Byers is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades and was a member of the inaugural group of LUNGevity Career Development awardees. Most recently, she was the recipient of an Andrew Sabin Family Fellowship to support her work in using novel CAR-T therapy for SCLC and the recipient of the President's Recognition for Research Excellence from MD Anderson. She is also an active member of the NCI's Thoracic Malignancy Steering Committee and the NCI's Progress in Small Cell Lung Cancer Working Group.

Dr. Byers is grateful for the critical support she received from LUNGevity early in her career, which helped her to establish her laboratory research program and has led to numerous discoveries being translated from the lab into clinical trials.

As a young researcher just completing his MD and PhD at Johns Hopkins University in 1988, Dr. David Carbone was looking for ways to apply the latest tools in molecular biology. He wanted to make an impact. After attending a talk about cancer mutations, Dr. Carbone realized that lung cancer was inadequately treated and lung cancer patients could really benefit from genetic and molecular therapeutics. Since then, Dr. Carbone has been striving to improve lung cancer detection and treatment.

The results of his work have been far-reaching. From discovering factors that cause cancer-associated immunosuppression to developing serum protein biomarker tests, Dr. Carbone has made a tremendous impact on lung cancer. Armed with intense scientific curiosity and dogged determination, Dr. Carbone has published more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and review articles. He is often invited to serve on NCI grant review panels and his laboratory has earned continuous NCI funding since early in his career.

Dr. Carbone continues to be one of the world’s leading authorities on translational lung cancer research.

While Dr. Carbone is proud of his highly acclaimed research, he is equally proud of his relationship to his patients. “Over the years, there are many patients that I remember well. Patients that I could really help and those that taught me something about lung cancer,” says Dr. Carbone.

He even credits some of his biggest research findings, including his novel discovery that EGFR mutations can affect a lung cancer patient’s response to therapy, to his close patient connections. “This guy came in for a Phase I trial and we were able to give him another year and a half,” recalls Dr. Carbone. “His family was so appreciative, that his wife called me when he was dying and helped facilitate a rapid autopsy. We found EGFR mutations in his tumor and reported it a year before it became generally recognized.”

Patients play a major role in Dr. Carbone’s motivation and success. “I enjoy working on both sides of the street: treating and learning from patients and their tumors, and also working in the lab to help improve their treatments,” explains Dr. Carbone who is a member of LUNGevity’s Scientific Advisory Board. “I’ve believed in the importance of patient advocacy for a long time…The people at LUNGevity are dedicated and effective advocates and I’m honored to be involved with helping them.”

Please find more information on Dr. Carbone here.

Dr. Dahlberg  holds a doctorate in Biostatistics from Harvard University, and her primary research focuses on the design, conduct, analysis, and reporting of observational studies, pre-clinical experiments, and phase I-IV clinical and translational trials. She is also interested in the design of expansion cohorts and the statistical challenges that arise from competing risks, masked-cause failure time data, and missing data.

Dr. Diehn received his bachelor’s degree in biochemical sciences from Harvard College and his MD/PhD in biophysics from Stanford University. He is a board-certified radiation oncologist and specializes in the treatment of lung cancers.

Dr. Diehn’s research program spans laboratory, translational, and clinical studies. His main areas of interest include liquid biopsies, lung cancer biology, and mechanisms of resistance to anti-cancer therapies including radiotherapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapies. He has served on committees for a variety of national organizations including ASTRO, ASCO, AARC, and RSNA and is a Scientific Editor for Cancer Discovery.

Dr. Diehn has received funding from organizations such as the NIH, Department of Defense, and Stand Up To Cancer and he has been recognized with a variety of awards, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the V Foundation Scholar Award, the Sidney Kimmel Scholar Award, the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award, and election into the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

In 2021, Dr. Diehn was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, which is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

Her clinical and interests focus on the early diagnosis and treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. Areas of expertise include the use of multimodality therapy for thoracic malignancies, treatment options for high risk patients with early stage lung cancer and lung cancer in women. She is the surgical chair for the thoracic oncology section of NRG Oncology Group. She is the immediate past president of the Women in Thoracic Surgery and the New York Society for Thoracic Surgery.

Dr. Steve Dubinett is a creative scientist.  He believes in looking hard at the scientific data and then pushes his thoughts away from conventional ideas. He likes to work collaboratively with others who are willing to forge new paths in research and it has paid off. Dr. Dubinett is best known for uncovering surprising connections between inflammation and lung cancer.

His findings, which show how the body’s inflammatory response contributes to converting a normal epithelial cell into a lung cancer cell, are likely to have major translational applications. This kind of impact is exactly why Dr. Dubinett is interested in studying lung cancer. “It affords us the opportunity to do work that is scientifically based and reaches patients in a meaningful way.”

“Lung cancer remains underfunded in the United States,” explains Dr. Dubinett, a member of LUNGevity’s Scientific Advisory Board. “We have lacked the imagination about what we may be able to do for patients who are at risk or who have lung cancer.  Adequately funding research will make a profound impact in this major health problem.”

As a recipient of a 2010 LUNGevity grant, Dr. Dubinett has seen the benefits of LUNGevity’s thorough grant selection process. LUNGevity is interested in getting meaningful results quickly, says Dr. Dubinett, and they are open to creative ideas as long as the ideas are backed up by solid scientific data.

Over the past decade, Dr. Dubinett and his team have been studying the microenvironments surrounding lung cancer tumors. Their findings show that while early tumors often are asymptomatic and too small to be detected on imaging scans, they do alter the proteins and microRNA of the patient’s blood in order to encourage tumor development.

Dr. Dubinett, a pioneer in his field, has been investigating the use of these proteins and microRNAs as biomarkers for early stage lung cancer. Over time, this unique approach has come to be supported by a wealth of data from other laboratories as well. The team’s preliminary studies have already led them to develop a biomarker panel that accurately distinguishes smokers with and without lung cancer and they predict the blood test in development will have high sensitivity.

LUNGevity is proud to fund the development of this blood test that could detect lung cancer before it is too late.

Note: LUNGevity follows the gold standard process of reviewing and selecting grants that is used by the National Cancer Institute. Therefore, Dr. Dubinett was not involved in the review and selection of his research grant.

Read more about Dr. Dubinett here.

Dr. Forde’s research examines the role of immunotherapy for earlier-stage lung cancer, and his work has led to the development of several ongoing phase III trials.

He specializes in molecular pathology, with particular emphasis on the pathology of breast, esophageal and lung cancers. Dr. Gabrielson serves as the co-director of the graduate program in pathobiology.

He received his MD from Northwestern University in 1977. He conducted a residency in pathology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 1982, and completed a fellowship in pathology at the National Institutes of Health in 1985.

Dr. Gabrielson has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and is board certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology.

After growing up in Minneapolis, he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His MD degree is from Washington University in St. Louis. He performed his internship and residency at the University of Chicago.

After a chief residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Dr Garon was a fellow in hematology and oncology at UCLA. He has remained at UCLA ever since and is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology-Oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He also received a Master's degree in clinical investigation from UCLA.

Dr Garon has been the principal investigator of peer-reviewed grants from various funding organizations, including the National Cancer Institute. His focus is on clinical research and biomarker development. He has served as the principal investigator on national and international phase I, II, and III clinical trials, including trials that have led to the approval of multiple drugs, among them the non-small cell lung cancer drugs ramucirumab (Cyramza®) and the immunotherapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda®), along with a companion diagnostic.

Dr. Heymach joined the MD Anderson faculty in 2005 as an assistant professor, with a joint appointment in Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology and Cancer Biology. He was promoted to associate professor in 2009. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and both his MD and PhD from Stanford University Medical School in California. He then completed his internship and residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and his fellowship in Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  During his fellowship, Dr. Heymach worked in the prestigious laboratory of Dr. Judah Folkman with clinical mentorship under Dr. Bruce Johnson.  

Dr. Heymach's research focuses on investigating mechanisms of therapeutic resistance, understanding the regulation of angiogenesis in lung cancer, and developing biomarkers for selecting patients most likely to benefit from targeted agents. Dr. Heymach has led a number of Phase I/II clinical trials in NSCLC and currently serves as the principal investigator on the BATTLE-frontline trial using novel combinations of targeted agents as frontline therapy for NSCLC patients. His work has been extensively published in prominent peer-reviewed journals. 

Dr. Heymach currently serves as a project co-leader on the Lung Cancer and Head and Neck SPOREs, and is the PI on an NCI R01 award, a LUNGevity Foundation grant, and an AACR Stand Up to Cancer grant. He is the recent recipient of a V Foundation Translational Research Award, on which he serves as PI. He also serves as a co-leader of the MD Anderson Lung Cancer Moon Shot Project. He is a past recipient of the Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award, an ASCO Career Development Award, the Wilson Stone Award for Basic Science Research, the Emil J. Frei Award for Translational Research, and the MD Anderson Physician Scientist award. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2013. 

Dr. Heymach is dedicated to education and mentorship, as recognized when he was awarded Mentor of the Year in 2008. He is extremely supportive of his trainees and has supervised numerous graduate students, postdoctoral and medical oncology fellows, and junior faculty.

Read more about Dr. Heymach here.

Dr. Keith's research interests focus on the early detection and prevention of lung cancer. Specifically, his team is examining prostaglandin manipulation and PPAR gamma agonists in pre‐clinical models of non‐small cell lung cancer, including genetically modified mice. An NCI-sponsored human trial is nearing completion and he recently initiated an immunoprevention trial in high risk subjects. His team's chemoprevention trials include performing bronchoscopy to detect pre‐malignant central airway lesions, and they are better characterizing these lesions to better determine which will progress to invasive lung cancer. This involves characterizing the epithelial cells, the lesional microenvironment, and biomarker discovery/validation.

Read more about Dr. Keith here.

Prior to his Hopkins appointment, Dr. Levy was medical director of Thoracic Oncology Program for Mount Sinai Health Systems in New York City and associate director of the Cancer Clinical Trials Office (CCTO).

Dr. Levy is a physician-scientist who is currently leading immunotherapy trials evaluating checkpoint inhibitors with novel combination strategies, as well as targeted therapy trials. Dr. Levy has played an integral role on several American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) committees and currently serves as associate editor for the ASCO University Committee as well as editor-in-chief for the ASCO Self-Evaluation Program (ASCO-SEP®).

He recently completed two terms on the editorial board for the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) and currently serves as senior associate editor for Clinical Lung Cancer. He is an ad hoc reviewer for The Oncologist, Oncotarget, and Clinical Cancer Research (CCR).

He was recently selected as one of only 15 oncologists in the country to join the prestigious ASCO Leadership Development Program, whose mission is to identify and develop future leaders of ASCO. In addition to his ASCO commitments, Dr. Levy serves on the ALLIANCE Respiratory Committee, the IASLC Staging Committee, and the IASLC Career Development & Fellowship Committee.

Her clinical practice focuses primarily on the care of patients with lung cancer. Her laboratory research focuses on understanding and developing improved therapeutic strategies for specific clinically relevant molecular subsets of lung cancer. She is also co-editor-in-chief for the website www.mycancergenome.org, a Vanderbilt-initiated freely available website that aims to provide healthcare practitioners, patients, and advocates with up-to-date information on genetically informed cancer medicine.

Dr. Lovly received a BA in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University followed by MD and PhD degrees as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She then completed internal medicine residency and medical oncology subspecialty training at Vanderbilt University. During her final year of fellowship, she was the Jim and Carol O'Hare Chief Fellow. She started on faculty at Vanderbilt in July 2013.

Dr. Lovly has received grant funding from NIH/NCI, Uniting Against Lung Cancer, the Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Sarcoma Foundation of America, the American Cancer Society, the Damon Runyon foundation, LUNGevity Foundation, the V Foundation, the American Association for Cancer Research, and Lung Cancer Foundation of America / International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. She is an active member in the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Dr. Lovly is also an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and serves on the Editorial Board for Cancer Discovery.

Because there currently is no wide-spread, cost-effective diagnostic for lung cancer, he has spent years immersed in the details of lung cancer in order to devise a method of finding early stage lung cancer before it becomes fatal.

Dr. Massion is best known for his work on proteomic biomarkers of lung cancer, where he analyzes the body’s proteins to determine if there are deviations which could indicate the beginnings of disease. If lung cancer is found its earliest phases, it can be highly treatable. Therefore determining if a patient has lung cancer before they have symptoms is an essential part of improving survivorship of this disease. “I see people who are exposed to risk factors for lung cancer,” he explains, “and we are trying to see if they have it or not.”

Read more about Dr. Massion here.

Dr. Moghanaki leads several national lung cancer initiatives in the VA, including the VA Partnership to Increase Access to Lung Screening (VA-PALS) and the phase III VA Lung Cancer Surgery or Stereotactic Radiotherapy (VALOR) randomized clinical trial. He has been a member, advisor, and chair of multiple committees for national organizations and advocacy groups, including the American Cancer Society, American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society of Radiation Oncology, Radiosurgery Society, Veterans Health Adminisration, LUNGevity Foundation, GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer, and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

Read more about Dr. Moghanaki here.

Dr. Paik's research focuses on squamous cell lung cancer therapy, targeted therapeutics, and translational therapies aimed at the metastatic process.

Read more about Dr. Paik here.

At a time when most researchers could only see limited uses for CT scans and MRIs, Dr. Larry Schwartz saw more. A scientific visionary, Dr. Schwartz understood their greater potential and set out to develop novel uses for these imaging tools.

Today, Dr. Schwartz, Chair of Radiology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, is best known for developing CT and MRI imaging techniques that have opened new doors for the early detection and treatment of cancer. He has also encouraged the expansion of the technical capabilities of imaging tools through national collaborative efforts.

The findings from Dr. Schwartz’s laboratory combined with the work of national collaborations have played critical roles in the development of breakthrough imaging techniques. Though it was barely imaginable thirty years ago, there are now imaging tools that can reliably detect cell metabolism and cell proliferation. And more lifesaving technologies are on the horizon, says Dr. Schwartz.

Progress in the field of imaging is particularly important in the early detection and treatment of lung cancer because lung biopsies are invasive and potentially dangerous. “We need to find new biomarkers to be able to conduct non-invasive biopsies to determine optimal treatment plans and to track progress of lung cancer treatments,” explains Dr. Schwartz.

Currently, Dr. Schwartz’s team is developing imaging techniques to quantify changes in lung cancer. These techniques, which can show if the lung cancer has improved or worsened, can then be used in clinical trials to help determine the efficacy of new drugs.

Despite the low level of federal funding for lung cancer, we are on the cusp of major breakthroughs in lung cancer early detection and treatment, says Dr. Schwartz.

This underscores the importance of financial support from organizations like LUNGevity. “Working together, we can improve imaging techniques to make a tremendous impact on lung cancer in terms of figuring out how to diagnose it better, how to treat patients and how we monitor lung cancer treatments,” he says.

As a member of LUNGevity’s Scientific Advisory Board, Dr. Schwartz puts his visionary skills toward reviewing translational research grants and setting LUNGevity’s research strategy.

Please find more information on Dr. Schwartz here.

Dr. Sequist is originally from Michigan and studied chemistry at Cornell University. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School and trained in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in hematology/oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where she also received an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. She joined the faculty at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in 2005 and has an active clinical and translational research career, as well as a busy practice caring for patients with lung cancer. She is currently the Landry Family Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Center for Innovation in Early Cancer Detection at Massachusetts General Hospital. She has held grants from the NIH, the DOD, and many private foundations. Dr. Sequist’s research focuses on studying targeted therapeutics for lung cancer and bringing new non-invasive tests like circulating tumor cells and circulating tumor DNA to treat and detect lung cancer. In her free time, she likes to spend time with her husband, two sons and her dog, and is a hockey and dance mom.

Please find more information on Dr. Sequist here.

Prior to that, Dr. Shaw was the director of the Center for Thoracic Cancers at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Shaw has performed clinical and translational research. Her clinical research has focused on subsets of NSCLC that have unique driver mutations, such as EGFR, ALK, and ROS1. Her translational research has focused on understanding and making clear the mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapies to develop novel combination treatment strategies. Dr. Shaw’s research has helped to develop numerous FDA-approved targeted therapies for patients with oncogene-driven NSCLC, such as crizotinib (Xalkori®) for patients with ALK or ROS1 rearrangements, and ceritinb (Zykadia®) and alectinib (Alecensa®) for patients with crizotinib-resistant, ALK-rearranged NSCLC. 

Developing new statistical methods for early detection of cancer and evaluating their impact through multiple large clinical screening trials is not easy. Just ask Dr. Steven Skates. Building upon his formidable biostatistics expertise, Dr. Skates has spent decades designing early detection methods which accurately diagnose early-stage ovarian cancer when it may be more treatable and curable with existing therapies.

Currently when a woman is suspected of ovarian cancer, she is often screened for a blood biomarker, called CA-125. If the blood test result exceeds the threshold level of 35, she is evaluated further for ovarian cancer. Because ovarian cancer is relatively infrequent, it is crucial that this initial blood test is very accurate. If the initial screening provides too many false positive results, they can overwhelm the true positive cases.

Dr. Skates has a better way to screen women for ovarian cancer that personalizes the blood test to each individual.

By establishing an individual’s baseline for the biomarker and allowing for the natural biomarker fluctuations that occur over time, Dr. Skates’ method increases the accuracy of early detection screening for ovarian cancer. In this method, a woman’s blood test results are monitored over time and her risk of ovarian cancer is estimated after each test result. When this risk, based on her personal CA-125 history, is increased, she is then referred for further evaluation.

This method is more accurate than the current approach because it reduces the number of false positives in women who have elevated but stable CA-125 levels. In addition, it increases the chance of detecting the true positives early by identifying these women based on their own baseline levels of CA-125.

“It sounds easy,” says Dr. Skates. “But it has taken me twenty years to develop and test this sensitive and systematic algorithm, first in a pilot screening trial of 14,000 normal risk women over five years, then in a much larger 15 year trial.” In 2015, the largest clinical screening trial to implement this method, comprised of 200,000 women, half randomized to screening and half receiving standard care, will be ready for Dr. Skates and his team to begin analyzing the results.

“We’ll get a chance to see if we’ve been successful in reducing ovarian cancer mortality,” says Dr. Skates, Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School.

Over the past five years, Dr. Skates and his colleagues have also been leveraging the blood samples from their clinical trial participants to identify new ovarian cancer biomarkers that complement the biomarkers that are currently available.

With such a rich background in the early detection of cancer, Dr. Skates was excited to join LUNGevity’s Scientific Advisory Board and turn his expertise towards lung cancer.

“Colleagues at Harvard have died from lung cancer. It’s one of the biggest killers,” says Dr. Skates. “And the lung cancer community needs a blood test that’s inexpensive and accurate. It would be a great contribution the field.”

That is exactly where Dr. Skates excels. His areas of expertise: identifying new biomarkers, designing early detection methods and implementing them in screening studies are well-positioned to help LUNGevity and the lung cancer community as they search for screening methods and useful biomarkers.

Overall, whether Dr. Skates is reducing mortality of lung cancer patients or ovarian cancer patients, his motivation is the same. “My hope is that all my years of study and training ultimately have an effect on patients’ lives. In the end, new discoveries are really the stepping stones to helping patients.”

Please find more information on Dr. Skates here.

Dr. Avi Spira is making the world sit up and take notice. He is changing the way doctors handle patients at increased risk for lung cancer. After over a decade of grueling hours and painstaking persistence, Dr. Spira and his team have found a way to test the cells of a smoker’s or former smoker’s airway to determine if the patient is at risk for having or developing lung cancer. These cells are like a canary in a coal mine, Dr. Spira explained to the audiences of The Today Show and NBC Nightly News. “Though these were small studies and we are in the early days of the research, this test could represent a huge shift in the way doctors approach lung cancer care in the future.”

Our current medical practices are very limited when it comes to early diagnostics and effective therapies for those who are diagnosed. That’s why Dr. Spira wants to get results quickly. “We don’t primarily work with cells in dishes or animals in cages,” he says, “We want to get something into clinics to help patients.” And he is on his way. The test of airway cells that Dr. Spira developed is now being validated in a FDA-approved clinical trial. If the results do validate, Dr. Spira’s test will have a resounding impact on how the medical community cares for those at highest risk for lung cancer.

More amazing findings are on the horizon. “What we can do now scientifically is unprecedented and it’s going to get even better over the next five years,” he predicts. All fields of medicine will benefit from recent technological and scientific advances, such as super computing and the mapping of the human genome, including the care and treatment of lung cancer patients.

In the next five years Dr. Spira expects that doctors will be able to use biomarker tests to identify high-risk patients before they get the disease or when it is in early stages. And once the disease has been diagnosed, Dr. Spira foresees a more personalized approach to treatment. “We won’t just use chemo on everyone,” he says with excitement. “We’ll look for markers to help identify which treatments will be the most effective.”

And that’s where organizations like LUNGevity come in. “I really think that this foundation has an immediate impact by letting patients and families know that there is hope and by asking the public to support lung cancer research,” says Dr. Spira, who is a member of the LUNGevity Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board. “This foundation must continue funding highly innovative projects and supporting young researchers interested in studying lung cancer.”

Read more about Dr. Spira here.

Dr. Stiles is the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Lung Cancer Research Foundation, Vice Chair of the AATS Foundation Advisory Council, a member of the Lung-RADS Steering Committee, and Chair of the IASLC Communications Committee.

 Dr. Vachani co-directs the Lung Cancer Screening (LCS) programs at both institutions and leads efforts to implement lung cancer screening protocols, including the provision of tobacco dependence services to active smokers undergoing low dose CT screening and management of patients with positive findings.  His research interests broadly focus on the studies that address important process and outcome questions relevant to the study of quality and comparative effectiveness of current approaches for prevention, screening, diagnosis and management of lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies. His current work, funded by the NCI and PCORI, use multicenter observational approaches and interventional studies to assess key outcomes relevant to LCS implementation and the assessment of behavioral economic approaches to tobacco dependence treatment within the context of screening.

Read more about Dr. Vachani here.