MET CRUSADERS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Clinical Pharmacy Specialist, Hematology / Oncology
Emmeline Academia, PharmD is a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She completed her PharmD at the University of California, San Francisco, and went on to the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, Colorado for her PGY1 Pharmacy Residency. She stayed in Colorado to complete her PGY2 Oncology Pharmacy Residency through the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the University of Colorado Cancer Center. Currently, she specializes in gastrointestinal and thoracic malignancies and sarcomas, where she provides oral oncolytic education, monitors treatment, and optimizes supportive care. Her other areas of interest include pharmacoepidemiology and health care policy. Outside of oncology, Emmeline is a boxer, runner, snowboarder, and aficionado of all things food, wine, and beer.
Brandon Lengel is a third year Doctor of Pharmacy student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He completed his B.S. degree in Biochemistry and Biology at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater in 2018. During his undergraduate studies he was accepted into Mayo Clinic's Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) summer program and spent three months assisting with pharmacogenomic researchers on MIR2052HG gene impacts on Paclitaxel and Epirubicin and other LncRNA research. He also presented his organic chemistry research on the chlorination effects of acesulfame potassium at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research (NCUR) during his time at Whitewater as well. Currently, he is employed at Walgreens as a Pharmacy Intern and has future aspirations of completing an ambulatory care/oncology focused residency following graduation.
Dr. Mansfield is a medical oncologist at Mayo Clinic with a focus on thoracic malignancies and early therapeutics. He is co-director of the Precision Cancer Therapeutics group within the Center for Individualized Medicine. He has played a significant role in clinical trials leading to FDA approval of agents in lung cancer including atezolizumab for small cell lung cancer, pralsetinib for RET-fusion non-small cell lung cancer and the combination of ipilimumab with nivolumab for mesothelioma. His laboratory runs many translational projects to discover and validate biomarkers in thoracic malignancies.
Dr. Neal holds a medical degree and a doctoral degree in Tumor Cell Biology from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. Subsequently, he completed a fellowship in oncology, rotating through the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Oncology at the Stanford Cancer Institute at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Dr Neal's primary clinical interest is in thoracic oncology. In addition to maintaining an active practice, he focuses on the design and conduct of clinical trials involving targeted therapies (including MET inhibitors) and immunotherapy for lung cancer and mesothelioma. He has published dozens of articles in the field of thoracic oncology, including in Lancet Oncology, Nature Medicine, and the Journal of Clinical Oncology. He is a member of the International Association of the Study of Lung Cancer (IALSC), is a study chair and thoracic core committee member within the ECOG-ACRIN cooperative group, and has presented at a number of American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meetings.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in Ambulatory Oncology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Dr. Julia Stevens is a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in Ambulatory Oncology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA. She received her PharmD from Purdue University and completed two years of residency training: PGY1 Pharmacy Residency at the Indiana University Academic Medical Center in Indianapolis, IN and PGY2 Oncology Pharmacy Residency at Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, WI. Her primary responsibilities as an ambulatory oncology specialist include educating patients on chemotherapy, monitoring patients on oral oncolytics, and providing supportive care and treatment recommendations to the oncology team.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School
Dr. Mark Awad is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Clinical Director of the Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and his MD and PhD degrees from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He completed his residency and chief residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and his medical oncology fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute before joining the Dana-Farber faculty in 2014. His translational research focus is on identifying biomarkers of response and resistance to targeted therapies and immunotherapies in lung cancer. He is the principal investigator of several clinical trials for patients with thoracic malignancies and collaborates closely with laboratory-based investigators. His research has been published in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Immunology Research, and the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.
He is a recipient of the 2015 Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the 2015 Young Investigator Award from the International Association for the Society of Lung Cancer (IASLC), the 2017 Career Development Award from Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO, and the 2018 ALK Positive/LUNGevity Transformational Research Award.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School
Rebecca Heist is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an attending physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and her MD from Harvard Medical School, and subsequently trained in residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and oncology fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute / Mass General. She is a member of the Termeer Center for novel cancer therapeutics at MGH and is actively involved in early phase clinical trials in lung cancer. She has led international clinical trials in MET altered lung cancer and her research has been published in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.
Job Titles:
- Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California Irvine
Viola Zhu is an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California Irvine and an attending physician at the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.
She earned her medical degree from Fudan University Shanghai Medical College (former Shanghai Medical University) and was in a graduate program in Medical Oncology at the Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center prior to receiving her PhD degree in Molecular Pathology and Immunology from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at Boston Medical Center. She is board certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology.
Her clinical focus is lung cancer, and she is actively involved in many early phase trials of novel targeted therapies including those for MET altered lung cancer. She is on the editorial board for Journal of Clinical Oncology and has publications at many journals with high impact factor including New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Cancer Discovery.
Jessica is a clinical oncology pharmacist who has been working with cancer patients and physicians for almost five years. She is passionate about empowering patients to be their own advocates and to collaborate with their doctors to optimize their health care.
John Hallick, of Black Earth, Wisconsin, was serial a business entrepreneur, community volunteer, and philanthropist. He was diagnosed with the MET Exon 14 Skipping alteration in February of 2018. While looking for ways to help others with the MET alteration and promote new treatments, several people suggested starting a MET Oncogenic Group. The rest is history. John built MET Crusaders patient by patient, care partner by care partner, and he personally handled the navigation of countless MET patients for several years until he passed away on March 4, 2023. He was and remains well known to all of the MET-focused thoracic oncologists and scientists who he spoke with regularly and who he shared with the MET Crusaders. We will never forget him.
The MET Crusaders is now under the ICAN, International Cancer Advocacy Network umbrella. ICAN leadership will do everything in our power to continue John's impressive, irreplaceable legacy and realize his dream of turning the MET Crusaders into a multi-stakeholder global organization focused on turning MET-altered diagnoses into manageable diseases and then curing them.
John Hallick was a serial business entrepreneur, community volunteer and philanthropist. He was diagnosed with the MET Exon 14 Skipping alteration. While looking for ways to help others with the MET alteration and promote new treatments, several people suggested starting a MET Oncogenic Group. The rest is history. John passed away on March 4, 2023. We will never forget him.
Job Titles:
- Chairman in Lung Cancer Research
Following a PhD in Molecular Biology at the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge University, UK, Dr Camidge completed his medical training at Oxford University, UK. He then became the first person to double train in Medical Oncology and Clinical Pharmacology in the UK, before joining the University of Colorado, USA from October 2005.
Karen L. Reckamp, MD, MS is Professor in Medicine, Director of the Division of Medical Oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She received a master's degree in Clinical Investigation from the department of Biomathematics at UCLA. Dr. Reckamp also serves as the Associate Director of Clinical Research for the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute (SOCCI). She obtained my medical degree at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine in 1998 with AOA distinction, and trained in Internal Medicine at Washington University's Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Dr. Reckamp completed fellowship training in Hematology/Oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA in June 2004, and completed a Master of Science degree in Clinical Research (MSCR).
She leads many phase I, II and III studies funded by the NCI, internal funds and industry. Dr. Reckamp is a member of ASCO, AACR, International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and SWOG. She participated in the ASCO Leadership Development Program and led the Scientific Committee for metastatic lung cancer for the ASCO annual meeting. Dr. Reckamp has been the past recipient of many honors including American Lung Association, Lung Force Honoree in 2018. She has also authored or co-authored many manuscripts in the field of Thoracic Oncology, and has been active in investigation of MET alterations in lung cancer.
Laura completed her Pharm.D. at Midwestern University Chicago College of Pharmacy in 2015. She completed both her PGY1 and PGY2 residency training in hematology/oncology at NorthShore University Health System in Evanston, IL. Laura practiced as a clinical oncology pharmacist at Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin's Clinical Cancer Center in Milwaukee, WI from 2017-2020, specializing in genitourinary cancers and sarcomas. Laura currently practices as a clinical oncology pharmacist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital's Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center in Chicago, IL, specializing in thoracic and head and neck oncology.