Professor of Medicine, Medical Oncology and Associate Cancer Center Director, Experimental Therapeutics, Yale School of Medicine
Dr. LoRusso brings more than 25 years of expertise in medical oncology, drug development, and early phase clinical trials. Prior to her Yale appointment as Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology), she served in numerous leadership roles at Wayne State University’s Barbara Karmanos Cancer Institute, most recently as director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program and of the Eisenberg Center for Experimental Therapeutics.
Dr. LoRusso is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including most recently, the Joseph H. Burchenal Award for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Cancer Research presented to her by the American Association for Cancer Research in April 2022. Dr. LoRusso has also been involved in many service disciplines at the National Cancer Institute. She has served on the Investigational Drug Steering Committee (IDSC) since inception (2005-present) and served as its chair from 2011-2013. She was a member of the steering committee that convened after the Blue-Ribbon Panel to execute on their recommendations. She served a 4-year term (2015-2019) on the Board of Scientific Council (BSC), reviewing the intramural programs for quality, content, productivity, and funding. Dr. LoRusso has served in leadership positions of several other organizations. She has served on the Board of Directors and numerous scientific and education committees of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the education and scientific committees of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and the steering committee for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Accelerating Anticancer Agent Development and Validation Workshop, as examples.
Lillian Siu, MD
Senior Scientist, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto
Dr. Lillian Siu is a senior medical oncologist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She directs the Phase I Program and is the clinical leader for the Tumor Immunotherapy Program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. She holds the BMO (Bank of Montreal) hair in Precision Genomics (2016-2026). Dr. Siu is the Co-Contact Principal Investigator of the North American Star Consortium UM1 Phase I Grant as part of the U.S. National Cancer Institute Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network. Dr. Siu has served on the Board of Directors for both ASCO and AACR.
Dr. Siu was the recipient of the U.S. National Cancer Institute Michaele C. Christian Award in Oncology Drug Development in 2010; and also the recipient of the 2022 ESMO Targeted Anticancer Therapies Honorary Award. Dr. Siu is the inaugural co-editor-in-chief of AACR’s new journal Cancer Research Communications. She is also on the Editorial Boards for Cell and Cancer Cell.
Michael Gordon, MD
Chief Medical Officer, HonorHealth Research Institute, Scottsdale, Ariz. and Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Arizona College of Medicine
Dr. Gordon is a medical oncologist with a special interest in sarcoma and phase I investigational drug development. His career has focused on translational cancer therapy trials, and he has led efforts in cutaneous oncology both at Indiana University as well as at the HonorHealth Research Institute, which is currently focused on the Arizona Rare Cancer Initiative. The organization is investing significant effort in the strategy for developing treatments for uveal melanoma and rare sarcomas including translational studies as well as pre-clinical models.
Dr. Gordon is the former President and CEO of Pinnacle Oncology Hematology in Scottsdale, AZ, and is currently Chief Medical Officer at the HonorHealth Research Institute in Scottsdale, AZ, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix and Clinical Professor at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix. Dr Gordon was instrumental in the clinical development of antiangiogenic agents for the treatment of cancer and more recently, led the effort for the development of new immuno-oncology (I-O) therapies to treat cancer.
Anthony Tolcher, MD
Co-Founder, START and NEXT Oncology, San Antonio, Tex.
Dr. Anthony Tolcher is a medical oncologist and co-founder of START and NEXT Oncology, both world-class clinical oncology sites dedicated to Phase 1 clinical trials in oncology. He is dedicated to the development of new anticancer agents — including clinical trials and therapies — for patients looking for their next option now that their current cancer therapy is no longer working to their benefit.
Dr. Tolcher was a Fogarty Fellow at the National Institute of Health and received the Murray Muirhead Award for humanitarian and academic excellence and the Goel Prize in Medicine for excellence in the Clinical Disciplines. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada; a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology; and a member of the American College of Physicians, and the American Society of Clinical Oncologists. He also serves as a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Scientific Program Committee and the Cancer Education Committee.
Christopher Slapak, MD
Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine and Pharmacology
Dr. Christopher Slapak has 25 years of broad pharmaceutical development experience. Dr. Slapak served as the Chief Medical Officer at Vor Biopharma from 2019 to 2022. He held executive positions for over 20 years at Eli Lilly and Company as Distinguished Lilly Scholar and also Vice President Early Phase Oncology Clinical Development. In that role, he oversaw the global clinical development of all early-stage oncology compounds for Lilly and Imclone.
Dr. Slapak consults on scientific and medical aspects of hematology and oncology drug development. Areas of focus include pre-clinical data packages to support clinical development, implementation of first-in-human studies, and proof-of-concept designs in targeted patient populations. Prior consulting clients included Prelude Therapeutics (where Dr. Slapak served as their consultant CMO), Takeda Oncology, and Translational Drug Development (TD2). He is board certified in internal medicine, medical oncology and hematology and currently has a joint appointment as Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Stephen Neidle, PhD
Professor Emeritus, University College London School of Pharmacy
Professor Neidle and his team at the UCL School of Pharmacy originated and developed Qualigen’s QN-302 program. He has extensive experience in the discovery and development of anti-cancer and anti-infective drugs and has a distinguished and long history in nucleic acid research and drug design with over 500 published papers and 14 patents. He was educated at Imperial College London and was one of the first Cancer Research Campaign Career Development Awardees and subsequently a Life Fellow and Professorial Fellow of Cancer Research UK. His awards include the Sosnovsky and Aventis Prizes for work on the medicinal chemistry of cancer, the Interdisciplinary and Medicinal Chemistry Awards of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Paul Ehrlich, Kelland and Guggenheim Lectureships, and a visiting Professorship at the University of Rome. He has held senior posts at The Institute of Cancer Research UK (Professor of Biophysics and Dean) and at the School of Pharmacy, University College London (Professor of Chemical Biology), where he is now an Emeritus Professor.
Dr. Neidle was Founding Chair of the Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical Biology Forum and Chair of the Chemistry in Cancer Research Working Group, American Association for Cancer Research, 2011-12. He has been Editor-in-Chief of “Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters” and is currently an editorial board member of it and the journals “Nucleic Acids Research,” and “Methods”. He chaired the “Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry” editorial board and was Chairman of the Editorial Boards of Tetrahedron Journals and the RSC Biomolecular Sciences book series. He has served on numerous grant panels nationally and internationally; including the Wellcome Trust and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) in the UK and was a member of the UK Blavatnik Awards Panel for Chemistry 2017-2019. Internationally he has chaired the Science Foundation of Ireland grants panels 2017, 2018, 2021, and chaired the Medical and Health Sciences Panel, Czech Academy of Sciences, 2020.
Wayne Klohs, PhD
Chair of Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Klohs is an R&D executive and scientist with over thirty-five years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He is currently a consultant for over 10 biotechnology companies and serves on the Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Boards for a number of biotechnology companies.
During his distinguished career, Dr. Klohs served as acting head of Oncology Clinical Sciences at Takeda Global R&D, and Executive Director of Drug Development at Pfizer, Inc. At Takeda, he led both early and late-stage Development Teams in Oncology and was a member of Takeda’s Global Oncology Licensing Team. At Pfizer, he led development from mid-Discovery through proof of concept (POC) with additional experience in NDA filings including pentostatin/Nipent and suramin/Metaret. He led development teams to more than 14 successful IND filings and Phase 1 starts including a pan-erbB irreversible tyrosine kinase inhibitor, two MEK inhibitors for both oncology and inflammation, a cell cycle inhibitor, several P38 inhibitors, among others. Dr. Klohs served as a Senior Vice President and Global Therapeutic Area Head of Oncology for Astellas Pharmaceutical, Inc where he successfully filed NDAs and MAAs for Xtandi (enzalutamide) and Tarceva. He also led discovery efforts at Warner-Lambert/Parke Davis Pharmaceutical Research in oncology.
