CONCENTRATING ON THE CURE - Key Persons
Dr Sweet-Cordero is a cancer biologist and practicing pediatric oncologist focused on basic and translational cancer research. His laboratory's disease focus includes both pediatric sarcomas and lung cancer. His sarcoma work is focused on defining mechanisms driving osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma progression, metastasis, and therapy resistance. He has extensive expertise in integrative genomic analysis and functional genomic studies using CRISPR/CAS9. He uses these tools to drive gene and network discovery using primary tumors, patient-derived xenograft models, and genetically engineered mouse models. He also has experience in real-world application of tumor sequencing for precision cancer medicine and currently leads the UCSF Molecular Oncology Initiative (MOI).
Job Titles:
- Grant Writer, Staff / Professional Affiliation
- OSI 's Grant Writer
Amal Morcos is the OSI's Grant Writer. She assists the Development Manager and Development Committee with building and maintaining relationships with grant-making foundations that support the OSI's mission. Amal is an experienced grant writer who has written grant proposals for a wide variety of nonprofits including museums, medical schools, and hospitals. She began her career as a journalist working for the magazines of Time Inc. and uses her journalism skills of writing, researching, and interviewing to make her grant narratives compelling and persuasive. For several years, she traveled throughout the Middle East and the former Communist Bloc working as a corporate communications officer for international humanitarian aid organizations. Amal has a BS in English and Magazine Journalism from Syracuse University and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University of Beirut.
Job Titles:
- Osteosarcoma Institute 's Scientific Project Manager
As the Osteosarcoma Institute's Scientific Project Manager, Amy supports and contributes to the activities of the OSI Strategic Advisory Board (SAB) and its scientific committees. The work of these committees is key to making advancements in osteosarcoma science and treatment, and Amy will play a significant role. She will also contribute to fundraising and development efforts for the OSI. Amy and her husband, Tim, and their two children, relocated from Chicago in 2015 and are happy to now call Dallas home. Amy obtained her BA in Sociology from Miami University and her Master of Public Health from Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. Her diverse professional background includes program development and fundraising, grant writing, administering the grant giving program for a health system foundation, managing an academic clinical research program for a rare disease, and health care consulting.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Development Committee
- Development Committee Chair / Professional Affiliation
- Management Consultant at EY
- Member of Committee
Bret is an experienced management consultant at EY in their Digital and Customer Experience practice. He is focused on fueling growth and efficiencies in some of the world's largest companies by building digital customer experiences and leading large-scale transformations.
Job Titles:
- Commitee Member / Professional Affiliation
- Member of Committee
Dr. Crompton's research focuses on utilizing genomic and proteomic technologies to identify and validate new therapeutic targets for pediatric solid tumors and to develop non-invasive biomarkers of treatment response and resistance in these diseases. He and his team have recently developed a new approach to study tumor genomics through liquid biopsy technologies including the profiling of circulating tumor DNA and circulating tumor cells in blood samples of patients with pediatric solid tumors. Dr. Crompton is also engaged in national efforts to study the biology of osteosarcoma through the Children's Oncology Group studies and through patient-led research initiatives including the Count Me In project.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Chief Science Officer With Ethos Veterinary Health
- Strategic Advisory Board Chair
Chand is Chief Science Officer with Ethos Veterinary Health, and President of Ethos Discovery(501c3), its incubator of scientific innovation. His responsibility at Ethos Discovery is to develop innovations in the form of novel diagnostics and therapeutics for both human and animal patients afflicted with similar complex disease conditions (i.e., osteosarcoma; so called Comparative Oncology). Chand is a veterinary oncologist and both osteosarcoma and metastasis biologist, who has worked in this scientific field for over 20 years, most notably as a senior investigator of the Tumor and Metastasis Biology section of the Pediatric Oncology Branch at the National Cancer Institute and founding Director of its Comparative Oncology Program. Chand's research career has focused on improving the understanding of the biology of metastasis in osteosarcoma and the use of a cross species (mouse, dog, human), Comparative and translational approach to develop novel therapeutics for osteosarcoma metastasis.
Job Titles:
- Operations Manager
- Operations Manager / Professional Affiliation
- Osteosarcoma Institute Operations Manager
As the Osteosarcoma Institute Operations Manager, Chelsey schedules meetings for the board, oversees various operational aspects of the organization (including HR, IT, and office management), facilitates the grant cycle, and manages OSI Connect (formerly OSI Hotline) that offers free expert advice for osteosarcoma patients and families no matter where they are in their journey. Although Chelsey is Texan through and through, she spent six years living in Southern California and was thrilled to return to the homeland with her husband, Jordan, at the end of 2019. Chelsey obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of North Texas, where she studied Sociology, Philosophy, and Dance. Previously, she had an insurance and financial services career and was an Executive Assistant for her church in Orange County, California.
Job Titles:
- Commitee Member / Professional Affiliation
- Deputy Director of Count Me in
- Member of Committee
Corrie Painter is the Deputy Director of Count Me In and is a research scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. A trained cancer researcher with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, she completed her postdoctoral work in cancer immunology, focusing on melanoma. In 2010, Painter was diagnosed with angiosarcoma. She has combined her cancer advocacy and scientific background to engage with patients in order to build and carry out patient-partnered genomics studies with a focus in angiosarcoma, osteosarcoma and leiomyosarcoma. She is also the co-founder of Angiosarcoma Awareness Inc.
Dr. Von Hoff is currently Physician in Chief, Distinguished Professor Translational Research at TGen (Translational Genomics Research Institute) in Phoenix, Arizona. He is also Senior Consultant, Clinical Investigations for the City of Hope; Chief Scientific Officer for HonorHealth Research Institute; Medical Director of Research, Chief Scientific Officer, US Oncology, and Professor of Medicine, Mayo Clinic.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Strategic Advisory Board
- Member of the OSI 's Strategic Advisory Board
- Professor
Dr. Hayes Dixon has had several "firsts." She was the first Black woman in the nation to become a board-certified pediatric surgeon. In 2006, Dr. Hayes Dixon became the first surgeon in the world to perform a high-risk life-saving procedure on teenagers with rare forms of abdominal cancer. And she was the first woman chair of the Department of Surgery at Howard.
Dr. Andrea Hayes Dixon is a professor and the chair of the Department of Surgery at Howard University. Dr. Hayes Dixon has a basic science laboratory which focuses on rare sarcomas and also maintains a clinical research efforts. She specializes in refractory and resistant tumors and children and specifically soft tissue sarcomas and children. Her patient's request her services from around the world because of the rare diseases she investigates. She was previously the section Chief of Pediatric Surgery at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center then the the Surgeon-in-Chief of the North Carolina Children's Hospital and the Division Chief of Pediatric Surgery at UNC. She is nationally and internationally known for her work pioneering an operation known as HIPEC for children.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Strategic Advisory Board
- Senior Global Product Leader for AstraZeneca
Dr. Fernanda Arnaldez is the Senior Global Product Leader for AstraZeneca and leads Early Development Oncology research and development. Previously Dr. Arnaldez was the Investigator in the Investigational Drug Branch - Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program of the Divsion of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis at the National Cancer Institute (NCI); and an Associate Research Physician in the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the NCI. She specializes in rare solid malignancies in children and adolescents and previously acted as the Director of the NIH Pediatric and Wild-Type Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST) Clinic.
Job Titles:
- Commitee Member / Professional Affiliation
- Member of Committee
Dr. Heather Wilson-Robles received her DVM from the University of Tennessee in 2003. She completed an internship in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery at the University of Minnesota in 2004 and a residency in Medical Oncology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007. Dr. Robles joined the Veterinary Small Animal Clinical Sciences Department at Texas A&M University in 2007 as a Clinical Assistant Professor, converted to a tenture track position in 2008 and was awarded tenure in 2014. She currently holds the rank of Professor and serves as the assistant department head of research. Dr. Robles' research has several main foci- bench based discovery targeting tumor initiating cells while exploiting common drugable pathways between canine and human cancers, diagnostic development in the area of nucleosomics and clinical research using dogs as a model for human pediatric cancer. She has received over $8.1 million in external funding from a variety of sources. She has written over 40 peer reviewed publications, 21 book chapters and authored 40 scientific oral abstracts at national meetings. Dr. Robles was recently awarded the TVMA Medical specialist of the year award and is the President of the Veterinary Cancer Society.
James Morrow, MD, PhD, is working to understand why osteosarcoma spreads - and how to stop it.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Department of Computational Biology
Jinghui Zhang, Ph.D., is Chair of the Department of Computational Biology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. She holds the St. Jude Endowed Chair in Bioinformatics. Dr. Zhang received her undergraduate degree from Fu Dan University in Shanghai and her doctorate from the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Conn. Zhang joined St. Jude in 2010, leading the effort to analyze genomic data generated by the St. Jude-Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project (PCGP) to define the landscapes of >20 subtypes of pediatric cancer including osteosarcoma. Her PCGP work has led to new directions in research involving high-risk leukemia, brain and solid tumors while innovative analysis and visualization tools developed in her lab have been adopted by researchers worldwide. She led the first pan-cancer analysis of the Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatment (TARGET) initiative of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) which has unveiled striking difference in the genomic landscape of pediatric versus adult cancer. She sees the importance of sharing data gained from her collaboration with other pediatric cancer research institutes and has developed St Jude Cloud platform for pediatric cancer genome data sharing.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Strategic Advisory Board
Katherine Janeway, MD, MMSc is a pediatric oncologist at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. Her clinical title is Senior Physician, she is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Harvard Medical School and Director of Clinical Genomics at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She is an expert in caring for children, adolescents and young adults with sarcomas. Dr. Janeway's research is focused on genomics, precision oncology and bone sarcomas. She leads clinical trials in osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma both as an independent investigator and as the Chair of the Children's Oncology Group (COG) Bone Tumor Committee.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Director / Professional Affiliation
- OSI Director
Dr. Helman has been studying the biology and caring for pediatric patients with sarcomas for over thirty years. Dr. Helman completed his post-doctoral training at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He then became Head of the Molecular Oncology Section, Pediatric Oncology Branch, NCI, in 1993. He served as Chief of the Pediatric Oncology Branch from 1997-2007 and served as Scientific Director for Clinical Research in the Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute from 2007 to 2016. He joined Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and the University of Southern California (USC) in 2017 as the Section Head of Basic and Translational Research within the Cancer and Blood Disease Institute (CBDI) and the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplantation. He remains an adjunct professor at CHLA. He has also trained many investigators in the field of pediatric sarcomas over the course of his career. He is currently focusing on improving outcomes in osteosarcoma.
Job Titles:
- Director Emeritus at the QuadW Foundation
- Trustee, OSI / Professional Affiliation
Lisa Tichenor is a graduate of the University of Texas with a BBA in finance. Lisa is Director Emeritus at the QuadW Foundation and a Trustee of the Osteosarcoma Institute. In addition, Lisa is Chair of the Board Africa University, Inc, the US-based corporation supporting Africa University in Zimbabwe. She enjoys cycling and runs a community garden.
Job Titles:
- President, OSI / Professional Affiliation / President - Tichenor Ventures, LLC., an Investor in Early - Stage Biotechnology Companies Executive Director - WWWW Foundation ( QuadW ) Www.Quadw.Org
Job Titles:
- Member of the Strategic Advisory Board
- Strategic Advisory Board, Member, Trustee
With a background in law, Mary Katherine is trained in contract work, nonprofit management, development, and consulting with experience at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She is currently focused on raising her two young daughters and supporting the furtherance of osteosarcoma research.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Strategic Advisory Board
- Senior Advisor / Professional Affiliation
Dr. Brown is Regental Professor of Molecular Genetics and Director of the Jonsson Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. He received the 1985 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discoveries concerning the regulation of cholesterol. He shared the prize with his longtime scientific partner, Joseph Goldstein. The two also shared the US National Medal of Science in 1987.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Strategic Advisory Board
- Interim Chair
Richard Gorlick is the Interim Chair, Sarcoma Department, Division of Cancer Medicine, Division Head, Department Chair, Mosbacher Pediatrics Chair, and Professor of Pediatrics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. He is a practicing pediatric oncologist who cares for patients with sarcoma and is the principal investigator of a laboratory devoted to translational research focused on osteosarcoma. Dr. Gorlick's laboratory is a member of the National Cancer Institute funded Pediatric Preclinical Testing Consortium.
Robert Schreiber is the Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky Distinguished Professor; the Interim Head, Division of Immunobiology, Department of Pathology and Immunology, Director of The Bursky Center for Human Immunology and Immunotherapy Programs and co-Leader of the tumor immunology program at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University in St Louis, School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Schreiber received both his B.A. and Ph.D. in biochemistry/immunology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his postdoctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and remained there as a faculty member until 1985 when he was recruited to Washington University in St. Louis. Schreiber co-led/led the immunology training program from 1985-2003 and then took over directing the NCI T32 funded program in Cancer Biology and has led that program for 18 years. Dr. Schreiber's research focuses on elucidating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying natural and therapeutically induced immune responses to developing and established cancers.
Job Titles:
- Physician
- Commitee Member / Professional Affiliation
- Member of Committee
Ryan Roberts, MD, PhD, is a physician in the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplant at Nationwide Children's Hospital and a principal investigator in the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children's. Dr. Roberts is an assistant professor of pediatrics and a member of the Translational Therapeutics research program at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. He is a graduate of the Medical Scientist Training Program at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He completed his residency in pediatrics and a Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant fellowship at Nationwide Children's. A physician-scientist, Dr. Roberts specializes in treating childhood sarcomas. He has led the Osteosarcoma Biology Committee of the Children's Oncology Group since 2020.
The Roberts laboratory studies the processes that lead to metastasis in osteosarcoma and other pediatric solid tumors. Using murine models of metastasis, tumor-on-lung organoid systems, single-cell analytical systems, and conventional cell biology, his team has identified tumor-host signaling interactions critical to metastasis development in the lung. Their discoveries show that disseminated tumor cells exhibiting divergent phenotypes and can cooperate to manipulate the behavior of lung tissues in ways that facilitate the establishment and growth of metastatic lesions. Active research projects include pre-clinical validation of candidate therapies, elucidation of tumor-lung signaling pathways that drive metastasis in osteosarcoma, and identification of ways in which tumor cells cooperate with each other to drive malignant progression. The Roberts lab has developed close relationships with pediatric and veterinary clinicians and sees great potential in accelerating the development of novel therapeutics through coordinated investigation in dogs and children suffering from osteosarcoma.
Job Titles:
- President and Chief Executive Officer of Stand Up to Cancer
Sung is president and chief executive officer of Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), a groundbreaking movement that raises funds to accelerate the pace of translational cancer research and gets new therapies to patients quickly to save lives now. SU2C facilitates collaboration among the best and brightest in the cancer community funding scientists from different institutions who work together on Dream Teams; it also galvanizes the entertainment industry's resources to generate awareness and build broad public support for cancer research.
Job Titles:
- Development Manager
- Development Manager, Staff / Professional Affiliation
- Osteosarcoma Institute 's Development Manager
As the Osteosarcoma Institute's Development Manager, Vanessa focuses on fundraising efforts, grant writing, and marketing/communications as the OSI seeks to raise awareness and galvanize advocacy of osteosarcoma in North Texas, and in communities across the United States. Vanessa grew up in Waco, Texas, received her BS in Corporate Communications from the University of Texas, and moved to Dallas in 2016 to begin her career in nonprofit fundraising and development. Vanessa oversees the OSI's fundraising strategy which encompasses all available giving channels, including individual, foundation, and corporate giving, planned giving, direct mail and digital fundraising, and grants.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the SIFT Committee
- SIFT Committee Chair
The Osteosarcoma Institute's Strategic Initiatives Funding Team, or SIFT, was developed to bring together the OSI Strategic Advisory Board and influential experts in cancer care and cancer research to increase the amount of research that is being done in osteosarcoma.
"The goal is to change the whole paradigm in how we approach research for osteosarcoma," says William Tap, MD, chair of the SIFT Committee. "It is one of the fundamental principles of OSI and one of the reasons why it's so important for me personally to be involved in the organization."
We spoke with Dr. Tap to learn more about the purpose behind SIFT, how it is accelerating osteosarcoma research and cancer research funding, and the committee's goals for 2022.
Bill's academic and clinical career focuses on providing comprehensive care for patients, primarily the underserved and underrepresented, bringing cutting edge research into the clinics. Bill is Chief of the Sarcoma Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). He has extensive experience in translational medicine as it applies to sarcoma and oncology. He is currently in charge of the clinical, basic science, and translational aspects of the Sarcoma Program at MSK. Bill is also helping to build an Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Program at MSK (AYA@MSK) to better understand and meet the needs of this unique patient population. AYA@MSK is positively affecting care paradigms for AYA cancer patients and improving care delivery for all patients at MSK. Bill is also active in health outcomes work, promoting equity in cancer care. His overall goal is to improve the comprehensive biopsychosocial care for patients with cancer and rare diseases, while training the next generation of clinicians and scientists.