 |
Margaret Foti, Ph.D., M.D. (h.c.)
Chief Executive Officer, AACR
Secretary-Treasurer, AACR Foundation
|
A native of Philadelphia, Margaret Foti, Ph.D., M.D. (h.c.), earned a master’s degree and doctorate in communications from Temple University in Philadelphia. Foti’s graduate education and training focused on scientific communications, especially communications research, scientific publishing and information science. At the AACR, Foti progressed through several key management roles in scientific publishing to become chief executive officer in 1982. Working collaboratively with the elected officers of the AACR, she has provided the corporate knowledge and continuity of leadership that has been critical to the association’s progress and its mission to prevent and cure cancer. During Foti’s tenure, the AACR’s membership has grown from about 3,000 to 32,000 basic, translational and clinical researchers, health care professionals, students, cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and more than 90 other countries.
Foti joined the AACR as an editorial assistant for
Cancer Research (the most highly cited cancer journal in the world) under the editorship of her first mentor Michael B. Shimkin, M.D. She was rapidly promoted to the position of managing editor under the editorship of Sidney Weinhouse, Ph.D., and became the youngest managing editor of a major scientific journal in the country. Foti has launched six additional major peer-reviewed journals:
Cancer Discovery,
Clinical Cancer Research;
Molecular Cancer Therapeutics;
Molecular Cancer Research;
Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention; and
Cancer Prevention Research. These publications contribute more than 26,000 scientific pages to the cancer literature every year. In 2006, the AACR launched
CR, a magazine for cancer survivors, their families, patient advocates, physicians and scientists.
Most recently, Foti has led the AACR’s scientific partnership of Stand Up To Cancer, a charitable initiative that supports groundbreaking research aimed at getting new cancer treatments to patients in an accelerated time frame. The AACR plays an integral role by providing scientific leadership, expert peer review and grants administration and oversight.
Among her many professional activities, Foti serves as a board member of and is a past-president of the National Coalition for Cancer Research. She is also a member of the Melanoma International Foundation scientific advisory board; a member of the executive committee and board of Friends of Cancer Research; a board member of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and its Life Sciences Congress; a medical advisory board member of the Prevent Cancer Foundation; and a council member of the Council of the European Association for Cancer Research. She is a member of the Wellness Leadership Council; a strategic advisory panel member of the International Union Against Cancer; a scientific advisory board member of the King Hussein Biotechnology and Cancer Institute; a member of the 2009 National Advisory Committee for the Review of Cancer and National Health Reform Legislation at George Washington University Medical Center; and an external advisory board member for the University of Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research and National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Science Award Program.
Foti previously served as a board member of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). She was also a board member and president of the Council of Science Editors and the Society for Scholarly Publishing. She has served in various capacities for the International Federation of Science Editors, the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, the European Life Science Editors Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association, among other organizations. Foti has also been a consultant to several nonprofit organizations and lectures widely at academic institutions in the United States and abroad.
Foti has received many national and international awards for her contributions to cancer research. In 2009, she won the first Margaret Kripke Legend Award from the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, the European CanCer Organization Lifetime Achievement Award, and received a citation from Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter for her dedication to increasing awareness of the importance of cancer research as well as her pivotal role in creating National Cancer Research Month in May. She was the first recipient of an AACR award created in her name in 2007. Additionally, Foti has won the Award of Appreciation from the Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Chairpersons, the Award with Recognition and Appreciation from the Israel Cancer Association, the Italian League Against Cancer Commendation, the Distinguished Service Award from the George Washington University Medical Center’s GW Cancer Institute, the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of American Cancer Institutes, the AACR Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research, the Ville de Paris Award, the Cina del Duca Award for raising public awareness of cancer globally, the Community Caring Award from the William S. Graham Foundation for Melanoma Research and the Special Recognition Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology for her work in advancing clinical cancer research.
For her work, Foti has also been awarded honorary memberships in the Japanese Cancer Association, the European Association for Cancer Research and the Hungarian Cancer Society. She was awarded an honorary doctorate in medicine and surgery from the University of Rome La Sapienza in 2003. She received a second honorary doctorate in medicine and surgery from the University of Catania in Sicily in July 2008 and a third honorary doctorate in medicine from the University of San Pablo CEU in June 2009.