People

Elizabeth M. Jaffee, MD, began a 1-year term as president of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) at the organization's 2018 annual meeting. Jaffee is the deputy director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center and the associate director of the Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Jaffee also chairs the NCI National Cancer Advisory Board and co-chairs the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative. Her research focuses on developing immune-based therapies for pancreatic and breast cancers.

Isaiah J. Fidler, DVM, PhD, director of the Metastasis Research Laboratory at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centerin Houston, received the Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research at the AACR annual meeting. Fidler has extensively researched primary tumors and their ability to promote secondary tumors. His work established that tumors are composed of heterogeneous cell populations, and that specific cell types have metastatic potential.

Also at the AACR meeting, Joseph R. Bertino, MD, a medical oncologist and professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers in New Brunswick, NJ, received the AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research. Bertino's research has focused on mechanisms of drug resistance in leukemia, lymphoma, and soft-tissue sarcomas. He established that some patients with leukemia who are resistant to methotrexate also demonstrate amplification of DHFR. Bertino is currently working on developing new treatments for T-cell lymphoma.

For more news on cancer research, visit Cancer Discovery online at http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/CDNews.