Ellen V. Sigal, Ph.D.
Chairperson and Founder, Friends of Cancer Research (Friends)
Washington, DCEllen V. Sigal, Ph.D., is chairperson and founder of Friends of Cancer Research (Friends), a cancer research think tank and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC.
Friends is a leader in developing partnerships and advocating policies that will get treatments and therapies to patients in the safest and quickest way possible. Friends works with federal health agencies, Congressional leadership, academic research centers and private sector industry producing real results.
Dr. Sigal is vice chair of the inaugural board of directors of the Reagan-Udall Foundation, a partnership designed to modernize medical product development, accelerate innovation and enhance product safety in collaboration with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. She serves on the Board of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health where she chairs its Public/Private Partnerships Committee.
In 2010, Dr. Sigal was appointed to a six-year term on the Board of Governors of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) as a representative of patients and health consumers. PCORI is an independent organization created by Congress to initiate research that will help patients, physicians and caregivers make informed health care decisions and improve health care delivery.
She also holds leadership positions with a broad range of cancer advocacy, public policy organizations and academic health centers including: the American Association for Cancer Research Foundation Board; Research!America Board; University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center External Advisory Board, the Duke University Cancer Center Board of Overseers and The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center Advisory Council.
David A. Tuveson M.D., Ph.D.
Professor
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Cold Spring Harbor, NYDavid Tuveson is professor and deputy director of the cancer center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Dr. Tuveson obtained a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at M.I.T. and medical and doctoral degrees at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Tuveson was a medical resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a medical oncology fellow at Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care. During his postdoctoral years in Boston, Dr. Tuveson co-developed KIT inhibitors for gastrointestinal stromal tumors with George Demetri, and created several Kras dependent mouse cancer models with Tyler Jacks. His lab generated the first mouse models of ductal pancreatic cancer at the University of Pennsylvania, and subsequently moved to the University of Cambridge to develop preclinical and clinical therapeutic strategies for pancreatic cancer. In Cambridge, his lab identified a variety of parameters that limit therapeutic efficacy in pancreatic cancer, including poor drug delivery and survival factors in the microenvironment. These findings are currently undergoing clinical evaluation. Dr. Tuveson was recruited back to the USA to direct the Cancer Therapeutics Initiative at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and to serve as director of research for the Lustgarten Foundation. He will continue to practice medical oncology with an adjunct appointment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. His honors include an award from the Rita Allen Foundation.