
Physician-scientist Charles Sawyers
President Barack Obama announced on December 6 his intent to appoint Memorial Sloan Kettering physician-scientist Charles Sawyers as one of six new members of the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB).
“I am grateful these accomplished men and women have agreed to join this Administration, and I’m confident they will serve ably in these important roles,” President Obama said in a White House press release. “I look forward to working with them in the coming months and years.”
The NCAB and the President’s Cancer Panel are the only advisory bodies at either the National Institutes of Health or the Department of Health and Human Services whose members are appointed by the President. The primary task of the NCAB is to advise the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and ultimately the President of the United States on a range of issues affecting the nation’s cancer program and, specifically, NCI operations. The NCAB reviews and recommends grants and cooperative agreements following technical and scientific peer review.
Revolutionizing the Molecular Treatment of Cancer
Dr. Sawyers, Chair of Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, is widely recognized as someone who is revolutionizing the molecular treatment of cancer. His research involves investigating the signaling pathways that promote the growth of cancer cells, with an eye toward designing new treatments.
His laboratory discovered the recently approved prostate cancer drug enzalutamide (Xtandi®), and Dr. Sawyers has been instrumental in the development of two drugs for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia: imatinib (Gleevec®) and dasatinib (Sprycel®), which work by blocking the activity of BCR-ABL, the mutant protein that causes the disease.
Dr. Sawyers is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and is President-Elect of the American Association for Cancer Research. He is past President of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. He has received numerous honors and awards, including the Dorothy P. Landon-AACR Prize for Translational Cancer Research, the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award, and the Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.
Dr. Sawyers received his MD degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1985. He joined Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2006 after nearly two decades at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Dr. Sawyers will be a wonderful addition to the NCAB – a body that advises on some of our nation’s most pressing issues in cancer research and treatment,” says Memorial Sloan Kettering President and CEO Craig B. Thompson. “His appointment is also a fitting tribute to a man whose work has made profound contributions to research in cancer-related molecular therapeutics.”
Comments
Ibrahim Al-Seragy
Dec 8, 2012 • 3:36 PM
Gary Jones
Dec 10, 2012 • 10:03 PM
Unfortunately we are not able to answer personal medical questions on our blog. If you’d like to make an appointment with one of our doctors, please call 800-525-2225 or go to http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/appointment. Thanks for your comment.
Kelly L Lowry
Dec 14, 2012 • 4:49 AM
Bill Ridgeway
Dec 14, 2012 • 5:58 AM
Skordas John
Dec 14, 2012 • 6:26 AM
Clive Mann
Dec 14, 2012 • 6:33 AM
Rajee Seetharam
Dec 14, 2012 • 6:44 AM
Kathryn Breseman
Dec 14, 2012 • 6:49 AM
Nancy Briggs
Dec 14, 2012 • 7:15 AM
Kathryn Breseman
Dec 14, 2012 • 7:16 AM
Martin Gem
Dec 14, 2012 • 7:32 AM
Tanya Williams
Dec 14, 2012 • 7:46 AM
Denise Hok
Dec 14, 2012 • 8:25 AM
Carole Nixon
Dec 14, 2012 • 8:30 AM
Gina Mosley
Dec 14, 2012 • 8:44 AM
Evan Roman
Dec 14, 2012 • 8:47 AM
Rickon
Dec 14, 2012 • 8:49 AM
Georgia Georgiadou
Dec 14, 2012 • 8:50 AM
Farah Hage Ali
Dec 14, 2012 • 8:58 AM
Marlene Flemens
Dec 14, 2012 • 9:00 AM
Michael Kirkby
Dec 14, 2012 • 9:08 AM
The guy they should have been recognizing was a German doctor who came to the US in 1932 to present a proven cure for cancer. He actually cured two different types of cancer with no remissions. Unfortunately for us the AMA decided there was more money in cutting and expensive drugs.
The man's name was Dr. Royal Raymond Ride and his machines are still available today; providing of course you have the right connections. There's a real cancer fighter. He should have been to medicine what Tesla should have been to energy. What a myopic, puerile and sophomoric species we are when covetousness and avarice prevail over the health of our species and this planet.
Andrea Kitrel
Dec 14, 2012 • 9:15 AM
How about educating the nation on the true importance of a healthy diet and implementing some real laws and real departments that will regulate and actually SERVE THE PEOPLE'S HEALTH INTEREST so that we can AVOID cancer in the first place? For instance, PROPERLY LABELING OUR FOOD and BANNING GMOs. How about educating ALL "doctors" on the importance of the health as a WHOLE and not just throwing expensive pills/"treatments" at a patient's symptoms which in many cases make them more ill or even cause cancer? They certainly don't HEAL. I've yet to visit a conventional doctor that asks for details regarding a patient's DIET and EMOTIONAL STRESS LEVELS. How about.... making our health care system actually about HEALTH and not just maintaing/managing disease???? I know you and your family eat organic... get out of Monsanto's (and all the others) pockets- PLEASE - get real. (Congratulations Dr. Sawyer- these questions are really directed more to our President/government).
K KREISS
Dec 14, 2012 • 9:35 AM
Adia
Dec 14, 2012 • 9:38 AM
Liu Wai Ling
Dec 14, 2012 • 9:55 AM
Richard A. Pearlson
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:03 AM
Dorinnus
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:09 AM
Sarah Hunt
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:19 AM
Sarah Hunt
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:21 AM
Danielle L.
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:26 AM
Debbie Williamson
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:29 AM
Karim
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:30 AM
Katlentz
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:33 AM
Adam Izak-Sunna
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:40 AM
Barbara
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:48 AM
Ruth Saldanha
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:52 AM
Claudia Collins
Dec 14, 2012 • 10:54 AM
As the mother of a six year old girl battling leukemia I know firsthand the obstacles that cancer gives. I congratulate you on your achievement and wish you and your team much success. I hope that more time will be spent on finding better treatments for children. They deserve so much more than they currently get.
Once again congratulations.
Claudia Collins
Kim R.
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:00 AM
Brian J. Liebenstein
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:05 AM
Congratulations on this appointment. Here's hoping that there is no impediment on Dr. Sawyers' continuing to research medication which might prove beneficial to treatment of prostrate cancer, among others. It would be nice to see "the rest of the story". Are the members of this cancer board being put to work or simply garnering some sort of award as payment for past accomplishment, for which they were already compensated? Please don't take that as an implied indictment - it's simply a question. Many BLessings for all the work by Dr. Sawyers and the rest of the group.
Donald J. Swanz
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:07 AM
Sudhir Pandit
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:07 AM
Diana
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:08 AM
Bobbi Martel
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:09 AM
Connie Moreno
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:11 AM
Beth
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:12 AM
Richard Sherman
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:13 AM
Nancy Black
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:20 AM
Denise
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:32 AM
Andrei Skvarsky
Dec 14, 2012 • 11:32 AM
HELLO Dr. Sawyers , Warm congratulations to you and your research deserve thanks and appreciation of the world the fact that your work serve all humankind and I would like to inquire about some aspects of scientific and I'm sure I knelt answer your . I introduce myself , I am
a researcher in medicine old Arab and herbal remedies with Inherited experience in this area more than 100 years. I have Master degree the same specialty dealt with many cases of cancer and some of them recovered completely, But seen from the follow-up cases that the Simple or In the beginning situations recovering faster than cases chronic which has already drug treatment chemical or radiation, either those cases where removal of the tumor and then after surgery addresses herbal they recover fully by up to more 90%.
If he use of chemotherapy cause insurgency for cancer cell and non-response to treatment, or is it that the radiation has a role in transforming cancer cell-to-cell resistant to treatment? What is the difference between physiological cancer cell that had not been treated Chemical medicines or radiation and cancer cell exposed to these materials? Is it possible to identify the mechanism that is to stop the growth of cancer cells by certain types of medicinal plants?
Sorry for prolong talk Please reply and thank you for your sincere efforts.