Golub, Polyak selected for board of directors

Judy Garber, MD, MPH

The members of the American Association for Cancer Research have elected Judy E. Garber, MD, MPH, as their president-elect. Garber is the director of the Cancer Risk and Prevention Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

"I am honored and thrilled to have been elected AACR President," said Garber. "We are in a period of extraordinary scientific progress in cancer research and exciting translation of that knowledge to benefit patients. I am excited to have an opportunity to work with the talented and committed AACR membership to sustain the momentum going forward, and to attract the most talented young minds to cancer research."

Garber, who is also an associate physician of medicine and attending physician of medical service at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, will officially become the president-elect on April 19, at the AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010, in Washington, D.C.

Garber's research has focused primarily on breast cancer risk assessment and risk reduction. A clinical translational researcher, Garber has led epidemiologic, cancer surveillance, cancer genetics service delivery and cancer risk reduction (chemoprevention) studies in hereditary cancers.

She has focused particularly on breast and ovarian cancers, but has also studied pediatric cancers and sarcomas in Li-Fraumeni and hereditary gastrointestinal stromal tumors. More recently, she has led a series of therapeutic clinical trials as part of a translational group focusing on basal-like breast cancer, the most common form of cancer in women with germline BRCA1 mutations.

Garber has served in many critical leadership roles with the AACR. She was a member of the Board of Directors (2007-2010) and is currently a member of the Stand Up To Cancer Innovative Research Grants Review Committee, Finance and Audit Committee, Special Conferences Committee, Grants Advisory Committee and the Susan Love/Avon Army of Women Scientific Advisory Committee. She was chairperson of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR Grants for Translational Breast Cancer Research Scientific Review Committee in 2008, and has served on several other grants committees and scientific award selection committees over the years.

Garber has served on the Annual Meeting Program Committee as well as on the program and scientific review committees for many other meetings, including the CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, AACR Scientific Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics and the JCA-AACR Special Joint Conference, "The Latest Advances in Breast Cancer Research."

Garber is a senior editor of Cancer Prevention Research and a member of the editorial board for Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. She has also served as a senior editor for Clinical Cancer Research. All three publications are journals of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Garber is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Claire W. and Richard P. Morse Research Award and the Tisch Family Outstanding Achievement Award, both from the Dana-Farber; and the Statesman Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Garber is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, a member of the scientific advisory board of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and was a member of the advisory board of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

A graduate of the University of Virginia, Garber earned her medical degree and her master's degree in public health from Yale University School of Medicine, and completed her internship and residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Brockton-West Roxbury Veteran's Administration Medical Center and a fellowship in medical oncology at Dana-Farber.

AACR also announced that Todd R. Golub, MD, and Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, were elected to serve on the Board of Directors for the 2010 to 2013 term.

Golub is the Charles A. Dana Investigator and attending physician at the Dana-Farber and is founding director of the Cancer Program at the Broad Institute of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology; professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School; Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator; and associate scientific staff, at Children's Hospital Boston.

His research focuses on the use of genomic data to inform cancer biology and facilitate personalized cancer medicine. His laboratory has pioneered the use of gene expression profiling for the classification of human cancers, and has recently established new approaches to small-molecule screening based on genomic signatures.

Golub has served the AACR in several capacities. He is a member of the editorial board for Molecular Cancer Research, and has previously served as co-chairperson of the special conference, "The Role of Non-coding RNAs in Cancer." He has served as a member of the Kirk A. Landon-AACR Prize for Basic Cancer Research Committee and as a member of the Annual Meeting Program Committee.

Polyak is an associate professor in the Department of Medical Oncology/Molecular and Cellular Oncology at Dana-Farber and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Her research focuses on the molecular analysis of human breast cancer, and the characterization of gene expression and epigenetic changes that occur during breast tumor initiation and progression. Her goal is to use this information to improve the clinical management of breast cancer patients.

Polyak is active in many AACR programs. She is currently a member of the Steering Committee for the Clinical and Translational Research Committee, the Human Epigenome Task Force and the Steering Committee for the Tumor Microenvironment Working Group. She is a senior editor for Cancer Research and a member of the editorial board for Clinical Cancer Research. Among her past service, Polyak was co-chairperson of three Special Conferences on cancer genetics and epigenetics, and served on the program committees for several other AACR meetings and educational workshops.

The mission of the American Association for Cancer Research is to prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1907, the AACR is the world's oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. The membership includes 30,000 basic, translational and clinical researchers; health care professionals; and cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and more than 90 other countries.

The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs. It funds innovative, meritorious research grants, research fellowship and career development awards. The AACR Annual Meeting attracts more than 17,000 participants who share the latest discoveries and developments in the field. Special conferences throughout the year present novel data across a wide variety of topics in cancer research, treatment and patient care.

The AACR publishes six major peer-reviewed journals: Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular Cancer Research; Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention; and Cancer Prevention Research. The AACR also publishes CR, a magazine for cancer survivors and their families, patient advocates, physicians and scientists. CR provides a forum for sharing essential, evidence-based information and perspectives on progress in cancer research, survivorship and advocacy.