Printer-friendly version

The University of Pennsylvania Department of Surgery
and
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
and
The American Philosophical Society

Present

The Twelfth Jonathan E. Rhoads Commemorative Lecture
"Uncovering Novel Therapeutic Targets: The Tumor Microenvironment”

John E. Niederhuber, MD
Director
National Cancer Institute

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 5:00 p.m.

Complimentary reception immediately following presentation.

Reservations are required.

BRB II/III Auditorium
421 Curie Boulevard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

For reservations, please call 215-662-7539 or
e-mail: anita [dot] rodriguez [at] uphs [dot] upenn [dot] edu
 

John E. Niederhuber, M.D., Director, National Cancer Institute
John E. Niederhuber, M.D., became Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), one of the National Institutes of Health, in September 2006.

Throughout his distinguished career in academic medicine Dr Niederhuber medicine, Dr. has maintained ties to both NCI and the NIH. In addition to his work as a cancer surgeon, professor, laboratory investigator, department chair, medical school senior associate dean, associate dean for research, and university cancer center director, Dr. Niederhuber has also served as the Chair of the National Cancer Advisory Board, as an external NCI advisor and grant reviewer, and as a laboratory investigator supported by NCI and the NIH.

He joined NCI in a full-time capacity in September 2005, as Deputy Director for Translational and Clinical Sciences, and within a few weeks was asked to serve as Chief Operating Officer. He officially became NCI’s Acting Director in June 2006. Since assuming the directorship of the NCI, Dr. Niederhuber has shaped the Nation’s investment in cancer, to address areas that are likely to pay the largest health dividends. Together with Dr. Francis Collins, he began The Cancer Genome Atlas, an effort to comprehensively identify the genomic changes in all major cancer types and subtypes. In addition to genomic studies of cancer and work in cancer immunotherapy, programs in nanobiology, systems biology, investigations into the tumor microenvironment, cancer initiating cells, and subcellular imaging have benefited under his direction.

Dr. Niederhuber is recognized by his peers as a visionary leader in oncology. As a leader of the National Cancer Program, he daily puts into practice his expertise as both a cancer physician and a basic research scientist. His colleagues have acknowledged his leadership and accomplishments by electing him vice president and president of the Society for Surgical Oncology and president of the Association of American Cancer Institutes. He has served as a member of C-Change (a community of executives from government, business, and the non-profit community dedicated to conquering cancer) and as a member of the CEO Roundtable on Cancer. Dr. Niederhuber is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, recognizing his outstanding scientific accomplishments and commitment to service in health sciences.

In addition to his leadership of the NCI, Dr. Niederhuber heads his own Laboratory of Tumor and Stem Cell Biology in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research and also holds a clinical appointment to the NIH Clinical Center Medical Staff. His current research focuses on factors in the tumor microenvironment, in particular on cancer activated fibroblasts (CAFs) that lead to increased malignancy. MicroRNAs have been found to play a role in establishing the CAF phenotype. The laboratory is further investigating the origin and role of cancer stem-like cells in the initiation of malignancy. The laboratory is utilizing the NCI 60 cell line to investigate reliable cancer stem cell markers and is studying the role of tissue stem cells, thought to be precursors of cancer stem cells, in the establishment of malignancies of infectious origin. Both these avenues of study are geared towards the discovery novel targets for cancer therapy.

As a surgeon, Dr. Niederhuber’s clinical focus has been on gastrointestinal cancer,hepatobiliary (liver, bile duct, and gallbladder) cancer, pancreatic cancer and breast cancer. Recognized for his pioneering work in hepatic artery infusion chemotherapy, he was the first to demonstrate the feasibility of totally implantable vascular access devices which dramatically changed the administration of systemic chemotherapy.

Prior to coming to NCI, Dr. Niederhuber was Director of the University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center and a professor of surgery and oncology (member of the McArdle Laboratory) at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. Earlier in his career, he chaired the Department of Surgery at Stanford University and held professorships at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and at the University of Michigan.

A native of Steubenville, Ohio, Dr. Niederhuber is a graduate of Bethany College in West Virginia (receiving an honorary doctorate in 2007) and the Ohio State University School of Medicine. He trained in surgery at the University of Michigan.

Jonathan E. Rhoads, MD (1907 – 2002)
Jonathan Evans Rhoads was born in Philadelphia in 1907 to a Quaker family with deeply rooted intellectual and religious convictions. He grew to be a man of great personal commitments to clinical surgery, to research, to his colleagues and students, and to his family. After completing a formal education with an MD from Johns Hopkins University and a DSc in Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania where he served actively for 62 years. He continued to operate until the age of 80, but even a few weeks before his death, was still attending and participating actively in local, national, and international meetings.

At the time of his death, he was likely the world’s most honored surgeon. He was a pioneer in the study of shock, burns, coagulation defects, and renal dialysis, wound healing and inflammatory bowel disease. His lifelong interest in perioperative nutrition culminated in the demonstration in 1966 that growth could be sustained by intravenous nutrition alone, ultimately saving the lives of many of thousands of patients. His honorary recognitions for these accomplishments were numerous. Dr. Rhoads was elected a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1945 and served as its President from 1958 to 1960. Many of his important activities and honors occurred in the later years of his life such as six years of presidency of the American Philosophical Society, election to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the highest awards of the American Surgical Association and the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania. Among the honorary degrees he received from eleven universities was the first honorary Doctorate of Medical Sciences ever to be awarded at Yale. The citation read, “Jonathan E. Rhoads: Physician, Scientist, Educator, Editor, Civic Leader, Statesman and President of the American Philosophical Society, you are considered by your Philadelphia colleagues to be a  clone of Benjamin Franklin, the Founder of the University of Pennsylvania 250 Years ago.”