Richard Barakat, MD, MBA
Northwell Health Cancer Institute
Northwell Health Cancer Institute
Physician-in-Chief and Executive Director Northwell Health Cancer Institute
Leading cancer services and research at Northwell Health, Dr. Barakat oversees nine cancer centers under the Northwell Cancer Institute, which care for over 19,000 new cancer patients annually. Dr. Barakat is an internationally recognized surgeon and clinical investigator who brings extensive experience from his role as Chief of the Gynecology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering from 2001 to 2013, where he held the Ronald O. Perelman Chair in Gynecologic Surgery.
Dr. Barakat was the lead investigator on several influential clinical trials at MSK, including a study to compare the benefits of laparoscopic vs standard surgery for patients with endometrial cancer and was the lead investigator on an NIH funded national study evaluating symptomatic lower-extremity lymphedema in women undergoing lymphadenectomy for cervical, uterine and vulvar cancer.
He is a prolific author and editor, having contributed to over 340 peer-reviewed publications and leading textbooks in gynecologic oncology, including Principles and Practice of Gynecologic Oncology. His leadership extends to prominent roles as he was past President of both the Society of Gynecologic Oncology and the International Gynecologic Cancer Society. Dr. Barakat holds the Edward and Carole Miller Distinguished Chair in Cancer at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell.
Northwell Health Cancer Institute
Chief Scientific Officer
Northwell Health Cancer Institute
Dr. Boyd is the Director and Professor of the Institute of Cancer Research within the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and is an expert in cancer genetics research and clinical molecular diagnostics. As Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer and Director of the Northwell Health Cancer Institute’s Center for Genomic Medicine, Dr. Boyd is developing a Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, designed to deliver point-of-care genomic testing for cancer patients. He fosters Northwell Health’s scientific collaborations at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he is a Professor, and at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, where he is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
With 30 years of cancer research experience, Dr. Boyd has held leadership positions at prominent institutions including the Miami Cancer Institute at Baptist Health South Florida, Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University, and Fox Chase Cancer Center. Dr. Boyd has co-authored over 200 original articles, reviews, book chapters, and editorials, and presented over 150 invited lectures both nationally and internationally. Most recently, Dr. Boyd served as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology.
David M. Rubenstein Center
for Pancreatic Cancer Research Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Associate Attending, Department of Surgery, Hepatopancreatobiliary Service Associate Member, Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program Member, David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Dr. Vinod Balachandran, a surgical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), completed his training at Cornell, Stony Brook University, Weill Cornell/New York-Presbyterian, and MSK. In 2015, he joined MSK as faculty, where he is a laboratory head in the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, an attending hepatopancreatobiliary surgeon, and Founding Director of The Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at MSK, an academic biohub focused on catalyzing next-generation precision cancer vaccines. In 2017, Vinod’s group made the striking observation that exceptional survivors of pancreatic cancer have immune-activated tumors infiltrated with T cells that recognize highly immunogenic mutation-derived neoantigens. This unexpected discovery has spurred efforts to identify, validate, and deliver immunogenic neoantigens to “therapeutically phenocopy” the exceptional survivor state. His group has spearheaded these efforts, including the landmark first clinical trial of precision mRNA neoantigen vaccines for pancreatic cancer. Vinod has received several honors for his work, including the 2023 Trailblazer Prize for Clinician-Scientists from the Foundation for the NIH.
University of Michigan School of Dentistry, University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center
Donald Kerr Endowed Collegiate Professor
University of Michigan School of Dentistry
Professor of Pathology, University of Michigan Medical School
Rogel Scholar, University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center
Nisha D’Silva, BDS, MSD, PhD, is the Donald Kerr Endowed Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. She is also Professor of Pathology at the Medical School and a Rogel Scholar of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center. Dr. D’Silva is a dentist-scientist; her translational research in head and neck cancer focuses on biomarkers and molecular mechanisms of tumor progression and treatment resistance. Her clinical practice in oral and maxillofacial pathology informs her research, due to heightened awareness of clinical issues with oral cancer. She has been the principal investigator of multiple National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants and is currently funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research/NIH Sustaining Outstanding Achievement in Research award, and by the National Cancer Institute. She has published more than 100 papers in high impact journals including Microbiome, Clinical Cancer Research, Journal of Experimental Medicine, and Nature Communications.
Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging
University of California Davis
Director, Cyclotron and
Radiochemistry Facility
Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging Co-Director Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging
University of California Davis
Dr. Sutcliffe is a Professor of Internal Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at the University of California Davis. She serves as the co-director of the Center for Molecular and Genomic imaging and as the director of radiochemistry. Dr. Sutcliffe is the leader of a multidisciplinary translational research team that is recognized nationally for it contributions to the field of Molecular Imaging and Theranostics. Dr. Sutcliffe is the Principal investigator of 4 active clinical trials and is the leader of the UC Davis Lustgarten Foundation/ StandupToCancer Pancreatic Cancer Collective Research Team. She is a Fellow of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, a Fellow of the World Molecular Imaging Society and Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Assistant Professor
Department of Head and Neck Surgery Division of Surgery
The University of
Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Amit is dedicated to key areas of cancer research that will develop therapeutic approaches to improve patients’ survival, treatment responses, and quality of life. During his residency training, Dr. Amit became interested in the biology of cancer. After completing his residency, he undertook further training in Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he completed a clinical fellowship as a head and neck surgical oncologist and a postdoctoral fellowship with a focus on the neurobiology of cancer.
Dr. Amit was recruited to the Department of Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at MD Anderson in April 2019 and has an active research laboratory focusing on cancer-related neurogenesis and axonogenesis and on the role of neuro-immunology in cancer. One exciting finding of Dr. Amit’s lab involved describing a mechanism by which head and neck tumors can reprogram adrenergic signaling in neurons and the effect of targeting the peripheral nervous system on cancer initiation and progression. This will serve as a basis for combining treatments targeting the nervous system with other therapies, such as immunotherapy, in the treatment of head and neck cancers.
University of Texas Health
Sciences Center at Houston
Professor of Pathology
Vice Chair, Outreach
Distinguished Chair in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
University of Texas Health
Sciences Center at Houston
Dr. Gustavo Ayala, Director of the UT*Path Urologic Pathology Division, is an internationally recognized urologic pathologist. He has an active basic science, clinical and translational research for which he received uninterrupted funding from the National Cancer Institute, The Prostate Cancer Foundation, the Department of Defense and other foundation and industry grants. He has published more than 120 scholarly manuscripts. His prostate cancer biomarkers development effort, funded by the National Cancer Institute, has derived into new models of prediction for prostate cancer based on the interaction between cancer and host. His body of research has resulted in two ongoing human clinical trials, for which he is the principal investigator. The first is a prospective prostate cancer biomarker trial and the second a first in human neoadjuvant Botox prostate cancer clinical trial with biological endpoints. The later trial is the result of Dr. Ayala’s studies in the role of interactions between nerves and cancer, where he is considered the leading authority in the field
Dr. Ayala is a member of several organizations and has served as a reviewer for pathology and oncology journals and served on national and international grant review committees and export panels. His work has been highlighted in Nature. Dr. Ayala joined UTHealth’s McGovern Medical School in 2011 and his expertise includes immunohistochemistry, biomarker analysis. He has special interests in prostate, bladder, and penile cancers.
Nuclear Medicine and
Molecular Imaging Section
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Professor of Radiology and Section Chief of the Nuclear Medicine and
Molecular Imaging Section
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Cho is Professor of Radiology and Section Chief of the Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Section at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is actively engaged in translational research and serves as Director of the UW Radiopharmaceutical Production Facility (UW-RPF), Director of the University of Wisconsin Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center (UWCCC) Cancer Imaging Research Core (CIRC) and Co-Director of the UWCCC Theranostics Disease Oriented Team (DOT).
His research interest and expertise include translational molecular imaging and radiotheranostics, with a focus on clinical translation of novel and existing PET radiopharmaceuticals to improve clinical management and therapeutic development for cancer, with special interest in prostate cancer and lymphoma. He is involved as imaging study lead for multi-center clinical trials in prostate cancer through ECOG-ACRIN and lymphoma through the Children’s Oncology Group.
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Professor and Chair, Department of Cancer Systems Imaging
Professor, Department of Cancer Biology Gerald Dewey Dodd, Jr., Endowed Distinguished Chair in Diagnostic Imaging The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Piwnica-Worms has been involved in biochemistry and molecular imaging research for over 35 years. His laboratory focuses on the development and use of non-invasive imaging technologies to advance the understanding of human health and disease, with a focus on cancer and inflammation. A pioneer in the field of molecular imaging, Dr. Piwnica-Worms created several innovative genetically-encoded reporter strategies to visually capture and measure biological processes such as protein-protein interactions, signaling cascades, and drug action in cellular systems, living animals, and humans at the molecular and cellular level using remote imaging detection methods, such as positron emission tomography (PET), fluorescence, and bioluminescence imaging. His lab has also discovered and driven novel ligands and antibodies into the clinic for imaging applications and radioligand therapy.
Dr. Piwnica-Worms holds an MD/PhD from Duke University and completed his Radiology residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is recognized as a founding Fellow of the Society for Molecular Imaging, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the National Academy of Medicine.
School of Medicine and Health Sciences, George Washington University, Madrid College of Physicians, Catholic University of Murcia
Research Director, Office of International Medicine Programs
International Professor at the Department Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine School of Medicine and Health Sciences, George Washington University
President, Precision Medicine Committee at the Madrid College of Physicians Madrid, Spain
Chair, Molecular and Precision Medicine Professorship, UCAM, Murcia, Spain
Dr. Fernando Vidal-Vanaclocha, is a Research Director in the Office of International Medicine Programs and an International Professor at the Dept of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is also the President of the the Precision Medicine Committee at the Madrid College of Physicians and the Chair of the Molecular and Precision Medicine program at UCAM, Spain.
He has authored over 100+ high-impact articles on cancer metastasis pathogenesis and pathophysiology, founded several translational research centers and biotech companies in Spain and the USA, and has held significant roles including Guest Scientist at the National Cancer Institute, Women’s Malignancies Branch. He has supervised over 50+ Ph.D. candidates, co-founded the International Cancer Microenvironment Society, and chaired major scientific meetings in the fields of cancer microenvironment and hepatic research.
