Elihu Estey, MD
Dr. Estey is a Professor of Hematology at the University of Washington and a Member of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Prior to that, he was Chief of the Section of Acute Leukemia in the MD Anderson Leukemia Department, where he also held the Hubert L. and Olive Stringer Professorship in Medical Oncology. Among his observations are that newly-diagnosed APL can be treated effectively without resort to chemotherapy and that response to anti-AML therapy may not be influenced by diagnosis (AML or high-risk MDS), a finding underlying the WHO's reclassification of AML. Together with collaborators in the Statistics Dept, Dr. Estey has also introduced new, Bayesian methodology into the design and analysis of clinical trials. Examples include (1) a phase 1-2 design that allows monitoring of both response and toxicity in early clinical trials, (2) a phase 2 design that accounts for covariates and "borrows strength", and (3) adaptive randomization.
Judith Karp, MD
Dr. Karp is professor of oncology and director, Adult Leukemia Program, Division of Hematologic Malignancies, at The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD. Dr. Karp’s primary clinical interest is the experimental therapeutics of acute leukemias. As the Director of the Leukemia Program within the Division of Hematologic Malignancies, she is responsible for the clinical direction of the Heme 2 inpatient service. In the past year, she added 6 investigator-initiated, NCI U01-sponsored Phase I and II clinical trials of new agents with unique mechanisms of action to the SKCCCJH portfolio for adult acute leukemias and high-risk myelodysplasia (MDS). She is on the Executive Committee of The Lymphoma & Leukemia Society.
Joseph G. Jurcic, MD
Dr. Joseph Jurcic is an Associate Attending Physician at MSKCC and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He was Acting Chief of the Leukemia Service from 2006-2010. He is the Chairman of the Actinium Pharmaceuticals Clinical Advisory Board. Dr. Jurcic is a medical oncologist and hematologist who specializes in the treatment of patients with leukemia. In particular, his research has focused on using antibodies to harness the body's immune system to kill leukemia cells and to deliver radiation treatment directly to leukemia cells. Dr. Jurcic continues to publish extensively. He has conducted 13 clinical trials investigating antibody-based therapies of leukemia and has been the Principal Investigator on all alpha particle immunotherapy trials. Dr. Jurcic publishes extensively. He completed his residency at the Barnes Hospital, Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Jurcic received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and has Board Certifications in Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology and Hematology.
John Pagel, MD, Ph.D.
Dr. John Pagel is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Pagel specializes in bone marrow transplant, leukemia and lymphoma. Dr. Pagel is a member of American Association for Cancer Research, American Society of Hematology and other professional and scientific associations. He received his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine and went on to complete his residency in internal medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Pagel obtained his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics as well as his BA in Biology from University of California.
Alexander Perl, MD
Dr. Perl received his Bachelor of Arts in psychology, cum laude from the University of Rochester in 1993 and his MD from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1997, where he was elected to the medical honor society Alpha Omega Alpha. He then completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine from the University of California, San Francisco followed by a Medical Oncology fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. While working in the laboratory of Donald Small, MD, PhD at Hopkins, Dr. Perl developed his research interests in targeted inhibition of signal transduction pathways in acute leukemia. Dr. Perl was subsequently recruited to the University of Pennsylvania in 2003 where he is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology. His clinical and research interests are the development of novel therapeutics in AML and he serves as a principal or co-investigator for numerous clinical trials at Penn. He is actively involved in the education of the Heme/Onc fellows and won his division’s best teaching award in 2005. Dr. Perl sees acute leukemia patients in the Abramson Cancer Center and attends on the hematologic malignancies and marrow transplantation service at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. An active laboratory investigator, Dr. Perl’s bench research focuses on targeted disruption of the PI3 kinase/AKT/mTOR pathway in AML. He also assists the management of Penn’s Leukemia and Stem Cell Core tissue bank, which is among the nation’s largest single institution leukemia research repositories. Dr. Perl has authored several publications and book chapters on acute leukemias that have been published in journals such as Blood, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bone Marrow Transplantation, and Leukemia and Lymphoma. Dr. Perl is the recipient of a Career Development Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He has also received a research fellowship and training award from the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania
David Scheinberg, MD, PhD
David A. Scheinberg, M.D., Ph.D. is currently Vincent Astor Chair and Chairman, Molecular Pharmacology and Chemistry Program, Sloan-Kettering Institute; Chairman, Experimental Therapeutics Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He is also Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology and Co-chair of the Pharmacology graduate program at the Weill-Cornell University Medical College and Professor in the Gerstner-Sloan Kettering Graduate School at MSKCC. From 1992 until 2003, he was Chief of the Leukemia Service at Memorial Hospital. His awards include the Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Science Professorship, the Lucille P. Markey Scholarship, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Translational Investigator Awards, CapCure Awards, and membership in the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Interurban club. He is a Director of Progenics Pharmaceuticals, a public Biotech company, and Contrafect Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Scheinberg has been working in the area of a particle immunotherapy since 1982 and has been associated with Actinium Pharmaceuticals since 1995. Actinium Pharmaceuticals Intellectual Property is based to a significant degree on patents developed by Dr. Scheinberg’s lab. Dr. Scheinberg is a physician-scientist, specializing in the care of patients with leukemia and also investigating new therapeutic approaches to cancer, both in the hospital and in the laboratory. The focus of his research is on the discovery and development of novel, specific immuno-therapeutic agents. This includes monoclonal antibodies that target the cell surface of cancers, targeted radiopharmaceuticals that deliver radioactive particles including alpha particles or alpha particle nanogenerators to tumor cells for selective cell kill, and therapeutic vaccines targeting the oncogene products that cause the cancers. Seven different therapeutic agents developed by Dr. Scheinberg in the laboratory have reached human clinical trials, which include the first humanized antibodies to treat acute leukemia, the first targeted alpha therapies and the first tumor specific fusion oncogene product vaccines. His laboratory is also investigating cellular resistance mechanisms to these agents. Dr. Scheinberg has published more than 200 papers, chapters, or books in these fields.
Richard Wahl, MD
Richard Wahl, MD, is Professor of Radiology and Oncology, Director of the Division of Nuclear Medicine, Associate Director for Clinical Research, the director of Nuclear Medicine and PET as well as the Vice-Chairman for technology and new business development of the Radiology Department of Johns Hopkins Medicine. He has performed both pre-clinical and clinical studies with radiolabeled monoclonal antibodies and is perhaps best known for his early work showing the value of monoclonal antibody fragments for imaging tumors and for his role in developing radio-immunotherapy of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma using anti CD-20 antibodies. Dr. Wahl is also well known for his work on developing PET imaging of cancer, being substantially responsible for establishing that PET imaging with FDG is useful in a wide range of cancers.