We wish sincere congratulations to Cancer Center director Stan Gerson, MD on his appointment as dean of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine effective October 1, 2021 following a national search. The announcement was made last week by Case Western Reserve University President Eric W. Kaler and Provost Ben Vinson III, who cited Gerson’s extraordinary leadership, highly regarded research endeavors, and dedication to the Case Western Reserve community.

Gerson has led the School of Medicine since his appointment as interim dean on July 1, 2020, following Dean Pamela B. Davis’ return to full-time faculty status.

“We are delighted that Stan will continue to provide the exceptional leadership that he has demonstrated as interim dean and senior vice president,” Kaler said in a news release. “His contributions to the school and university over the past 14 months have far exceeded all expectations, and I look forward to working with him to help accelerate the progress already begun.”

Kaler also lauded Gerson's engagement with physicians and researchers from University Hospitals, Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth Medical Center and the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center, which has dramatically expanded opportunities to enhance the health of Northeast Ohio residents.

“I have viewed each day as a puzzle, with a new problem to engage, understand and solve,” Gerson said. “I try to listen more each day and use what I learn. It is gratifying to see this approach accepted, which in and of itself reinforces my own commitment to do good for the entire community.”

Last week the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center announced receipt of a merit-based extension of its Cancer Center Support grant, resulting in an additional $12M in funding from the National Cancer Institute. Our center is grateful for the continued support and recognition by the National Cancer Institute, as expressed below by Henry P. Ciolino, PhD, director of the Office of Cancer Centers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

“This [extension] is a sign of NCI’s confidence in Case Comprehensive Cancer Center’s continued exceptional impact in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer, and in having a significant impact in reducing the burden of cancer in Ohio and beyond,” said Henry P. Ciolino, PhD, director of the Office of Cancer Centers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Ciolino said the NCI’s decision was also based on the Center’s achievement as one of the country’s best-scoring cancer centers in its past two renewals—spanning 10 years—and its continued impact throughout the current period. He also commended the “stable and exceptional leadership” of center director Stan Gerson, MD and his senior leadership team.

Owkin, a startup that deploys artificial intelligence (AI) and Federated Learning technologies to augment medical research and enable scientific discoveries, presented findings in Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) with Cleveland Clinic at the 2021 European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) conference. The collaborative research leverages Cleveland Clinic’s high-quality datasets and world class medical research and Owkin’s pioneering technologies and research platform.

Cleveland Clinic researchers, led by Federico Aucejo, MD, Director of the Liver Cancer Program and Surgical Director of the Liver Tumor Clinic, have collaborated with Owkin to develop and validate a deep learning model that predicts survival and outcome of HCC patients following liver transplantation. This was performed on 298 whole-slide images stained with haematoxylin/eosin and clinical data from HCC patients who had a liver transplant at Cleveland Clinic. 

There is still time to submit your abstract for the 2021 Artificial Intelligence in Oncology Symposium: Precision Medicine and Cancer Disparities. The symposium will be held virtually Monday, November 8 - Tuesday, November 9, and we encourage participation from around the world. In 2020, the event drew more than 300 registrants across 5 continents, 16 countries, and 26 US states.

AIO 2021 will feature renowned speakers and lively dialogue and is guaranteed to feature cutting-edge AI research from a variety of niches within the field. The symposium will bring together clinicians, biomedical engineers, computer scientists, executives, thought leaders, and entrepreneurs with expertise in AI, machine learning, and oncology. These experts will discuss how AI is influencing cancer care and creating opportunities that will make a positive impact, reaching underserved populations, reducing cancer disparities, and improving global health. Topics will include ethics, cancer disparities, reimbursement, and regulatory issues surrounding the field of AI in oncology.

AIO 2021 is hosted by the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center along with the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics at Case Western Reserve University.

The Cancer Center Seminar Series will continue today, September 24 at 12p in Wolstein Research Building Auditorium (1-413). This interdisciplinary seminar series addresses cutting-edge clinical, translational, and basic research topics in cancer and is a focal point of the educational and inter-programmatic activities of the Cancer Center. CME credit is available for those who attend seminars. 

Seminars will also be accessible through Zoom during the presentation. Seminars will not be available for viewing at a later date.

Dr. McFarland leads the brand-new “Cancer Evolution” lab here at Case Western Reserve University. He began studying cancer evolution as a graduate student, where he found that tumors harbor many ‘deleterious passenger’ mutations that are harmful to cancer cells, yet nevertheless accumulate and can induce tumor dormancy. As a postdoc, Dr. McFarland helped develop a high-throughput technology that combined DNA barcoding with multiplexed CRISPR-based genome engineering to study combinatorial tumor suppressor losses in mice. These approaches are allowing his lab to quantify cancer’s rugged fitness landscape to predict tumor progression and drug response.

Associate Professor of Neurology, and by courtesy, Neurosurgery, Pathology, Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Stanford Medicine Faculty Scholar

Stanford University

Professor of Population Health (Epidemiology), NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Associate Director for Population Science, NYU Perlmutter Cancer Center

Presented by the Population and Cancer Prevention Program

Medical Director, Molecular Diagnostics Lab, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center

Professor, Department of Pathology; Member, Immune Oncology Program, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

Junior faculty members and established faculty wishing to refocus are invited to submit proposals for career development projects of up to $40,000 to be funded by the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center (Case CCC) - Tazania - Uganda HIV-associated Lung Cancer Collaborative. This training program is funded by the NCI U54 mechanism and is a collaboration between Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), the Case CCC, University Hospitals (UH), Makerere University, the Joint Clinical Research Center (JCRC), Uganda Cancer Institute, National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) Tanzania, Muhimbili National Hospital, and the Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI). Full-time faculty at or above instructor-level at any of the aforementioned institutions are eligible.

Personal Genome Diagnostics has partnered with the Center for Immunotherapy and Precision Immuno-Oncology and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute with plans to enhance PGDx’s Elio plasma complete test reports and develop new liquid biopsy methods and assay iterations. Dr. Timothy Chan discusses the collaboration.

They searched high and low for treatment options. And that's when they stumbled upon a novel clinical trial that combines immunotherapy and minimally invasive brain surgery at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center. Led by Dr. Andrew Sloan, this option gave Noonan years to live, instead of the months that other doctors had told her she had. And within six months of starting the trial, Noonan received welcome news.