People

Elaine R. Mardis, PhD, began a 1-year term as president of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) on April 1 at the organization's 2019 annual meeting. Mardis is co-executive director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children's Hospital and a professor of pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, both in Columbus. She has served in various roles at the AACR, including as a member of the Board of Directors. She conducts basic and translational research on cancer genomics and is developing therapies based on genetic drivers of disease.

Raymond N. DuBois, MD, PhD, the dean of medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, received the Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research at the AACR meeting. His research focuses on early detection and prevention of colorectal cancer. He elucidated the function of prostaglandins and cyclooxygenase in the disease, leading to studies on the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for disease prevention. He is a past president of the AACR.

Also at the AACR meeting, Emil J. Freireich, MD, a professor in the Department of Leukemia, Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, received the AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research. Freireich played a key role in developing treatments for blood cancers, including a highly effective four-drug chemotherapy cocktail for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He also established that bleeding in patients with acute myeloid leukemia can be prevented with allogeneic platelet transfusions.

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