Advisors
Peter C. Bahrs, PhD
Dr. Bahrs is an expert in machine learning, artificial intelligence, smart cameras and cloud systems. For 27 years, Dr. Bahrs was IBM’s Chief Technology Officer, Distinguished Engineer, Master Inventor and award winning member of the IBM Academy of Technology. He grew a business from a team of 5 based in Austin, Texas, to a world wide $700m/year organization consisting of 3000 technical experts responsible for delivering projects in mobile apps, enterprise . . .
. . . integration, and platform migration. Dr. Bahrs was the Red Team review leader for IBM for 10 years. He led large scale projects in banking, healthcare, retail, government, defense, and insurance in the USA, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, and Italy. Dr. Bahrs holds 27 US Patents.
Dr. Bahrs received a BS, MS and PhD in Computer Science at the University of Louisiana’s Center for Advanced Computer Studies. He worked as a lab manager, NASA Research Assistant and Landmark Graphics Research Assistant. While in graduate school, Dr. Bahrs wrote the petroleum industry’s first Windows based application for well penetration and production for Resource Technology Group. Dr. Bahrs PhD was on heterogeneous parallel graphics systems.
Nina Bhardwaj, MD/PhD
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, holds the Ward-Coleman Chair in Cancer Research and is a Professor of Medicine, Hematology and Oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Bhardwaj, Director of Immunotherapy at The Tisch Cancer Institute, is an immunologist who has made seminal contributions to human dendritic cell biology. She is also the founder and Medical Director of the Vaccine and Cell Therapy Lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the first enterprise of its kind in the area.
Dr. Bhardwaj is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians, and a recipient of the Doris Duke Distinguished Scientist Award. In 2015, she received the Fred W. Alt Award for New Discoveries in Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute. She is a member of Mount Sinai’s institutional COVID Trials Oversight Committee, serving as the chair of the COVID Trials Vaccine Subcommittee, and as a member of 4 other subcommittees, owing to her expertise on dendritic cell and innate immunity research. Dr. Bhardwaj has also attracted multiple federal and foundation grants and has authored over 200 publications.
Stephen Hodi, MD/PhD
DFCI-HARVARD
Dr. Hodi is the Director of the Melanoma Center and the Center for Immuno-Oncology at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He received his MD degree from Cornell University Medical College in 1992. Dr. Hodi competed his postdoctoral training in Internal Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and Medical Oncology training at Dana-Farber cancer Institute where he joined the faculty in 1995. His research focuses on gene therapy, the . . .
. . . development of immune therapies, and first into human studies for malignant melanoma. Dr. Hodi is a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Melanoma Committee, the International Society for the Biological Therapy of cancer, and a founding member of the Society for Melanoma Research.
Mario Lacouture, MD
MSKCC
. . . patients, and those that arise as a consequence of chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy or stem cell transplants. Dr. Lacouture is currently the Principal Investigator for “The CHANCE Trial”, A Longitudinal Study of Chemotherapy-Induced Hair Changes and Alopecia, Skin Aging and Nail Changes in Women with Non-Metastatic Breast Cancer. Dr. Lacouture is a well-known lecturer in the US and abroad on dermatologic conditions as a result of cancer therapies. He founded a clinical program that encompasses patient care, education, and research on dermatologic care in cancer patients and survivors. He is currently Co-Chair of the Skin Toxicity Study Group of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer and is on the advisory board of Cancer.Net and Bridges, the Newsletter for Cancer Survivors. In 2012, CancerCare named Dr Lacouture as Physician of the Year for his contributions to the education of people living with cancer. Dr Lacouture has published over 180 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is the author of Dr Lacouture’s Skin Care Guide for People Living With Cancer and Editor of the textbook Dermatologic Principles and Practice in Oncology.
Crystal Mackall, MD
STANFORD
Crystal L Mackall MD is an Endowed Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Stanford University. She is Founding Director of the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy, Associate Director of Stanford Cancer Institute, and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Stanford. During her tenure as Chief of the Pediatric Oncology Branch, NCI, she built an internationally recognized translational research program spanning basic studies of T cell homeostasis and tumor immunology, and clinical trials of immune based therapies . . .
. . . for cancer. Her work is credited with identifying an essential role for the thymus in human T cell regeneration and discovering IL-7 as the master regulator of T cell homeostasis. She has led numerous cutting edge and first-in-human and first-in- child clinical trials spanning dendritic cell vaccines, cytokines, and adoptive immunotherapy using NK cells and genetically modified T cells. Her group was among the first to demonstrate impressive activity of CD19-CAR in pediatric leukemia, to demonstrate activity of the CD22-CAR in childhood leukemia, and to identify T cell exhaustion as a major factor limiting the efficacy of this novel class of therapeutics. At Stanford, she launched one of the first trials utilizing a bispecific CAR aimed at offsetting immune escape. Dr. Mackall’s clinical trials are notable for the incorporation of deep biologic endpoints that further our understanding of the basis for success and failure of the agent under study. She has published over 170 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals and serves in numerous leadership positions, including co-Leader of the St. Baldrick’s-StandUp2Cancer Pediatric Dream Team, Chair of the AACR Pediatric Cancer Working Group and Leader of the NCI Pediatric Cancer Immunotherapy Trials Network. She is Board Certified in Pediatrics and Internal Medicine.
Lee N. Newcomer, M.D.
Lee N. Newcomer, M.D. spends his time creating new approaches to make cancer care more effective and affordable. He utilizes expertise in medical oncology, health plan strategy and operations, health services research, finance and communications to create disruptive approaches for improved care of cancer patients.
The majority of his career was with UnitedHealth Group. He was their Chief Medical Officer from 1991 to 2001 where . . .
. . . he built the company’s medical management programs. He focused his later work on the development of performance measures and incentives for the improvement of clinical care. He returned in 2006 to lead an initiative combining clinical, financial and program management experts to focus on cancer care. This team was the first to complete an episode payment program for cancer treatment and it created the first commercial cancer database combining clinical and claims data.
Prior to his work at UnitedHealth Group Dr. Newcomer practiced medical oncology for nine years in Minneapolis and Tulsa, Oklahoma. He served as the Medical Director for Cigna Healthcare, in Kansas City and he was a founding executive of Vivius, a consumer directed venture that allowed consumers to create their own personalized health plans.
He is a former Chairman of Park Nicollet Health Services (HealthPartners), an integrated system of physicians and hospitals based in Minnesota with national recognition for its leadership in quality, safety and cost effectiveness. He is a director at Myriad Genetics, Cellworks and Intervention Insights.
Dr. Newcomer holds a B.A. degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University, a M.D. degree from the University Of Nebraska College Of Medicine and a Masters of Health Administration from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His clinical training included an internal medicine residency at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and a medical oncology fellowship at the Yale University School of Medicine
Antoni Ribas, MD/PhD
UCLA
Antoni Ribas, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Medicine, Professor of Surgery, and Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Director of the Tumor Immunology Program at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC), Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) Center at UCLA. Dr Ribas is a physician-scientist who conducts laboratory and clinical research in malignant melanoma, focusing on gene engineered T cells, PD-1 blockade and BRAF . . .
. . . targeted therapies. His research is based on models of disease to test new therapeutic options, studies mechanism of action of treatments in patients and the molecular mechanisms of therapy resistance.
Dr. Ribas is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), has a Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Buenos Aires, co-led the Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C)-Cancer Research Institute (CRI)-AACR Immunotherapy Dream Team with the Nobel Laureate James Allison, is the recipient of a NCI Outstanding Investigator Award, was profiled as one of the five Visionaries in Medicine by the New York Times on May 27, 2018, acknowledged as Great Immigrant by the Carnegie Foundation in the New York Times on July4, 2018, and is the recipient of the 2014 AACR Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award and the 2018 AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology. He is currently the President-elect of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
Naiyer Rizvi, MD
COLUMBIA
Naiyer Rizvi is an internationally recognized leader in the treatment of lung cancer and immunotherapy drug development. He currently serves as the Price Family Professor of Medicine and Director of Thoracic Oncology as well as Co-Director of Cancer Immunotherapy at Columbia University Medical Center.
Dr. Rizvi is also the Research Director of the Price Family Comprehensive Center for Chest Care at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Among his many accomplishments, his early clinical trial . . .
. . . research played a significant role in the FDA approval of immune checkpoint inhibitors for melanoma and lung cancer. His research focus is studying mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to immunotherapy and through genetic testing of tumors, he has been able to improve the understanding of clinical responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors.
Dr. Rizvi actively conducts clinical studies of novel immunotherapy drugs and immunotherapy combinations. His research has received funding from the National Institute of Health and Stand Up to Cancer and his work has been published in journal including Science, Nature and New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Rizvi received his M.D. from the University Of Manitoba Faculty Of Medicine. He completed his residency training at the University of Manitoba Affiliated Hospital and fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School.
Dave Singhal
Dave Singhal is an innovator in health and visual analytics, processing, and AI. He received a BS from UC Berkeley and MS from Stanford University.
Dave’s career has been focused on AI, computation, and image processing. He was an early member of three related start ups which went through initial stock offerings (Cirrus Logic, Trident Microsystems, Neomagic), and later another (Luxxon) which he . . .
. . . started, ran, split in two parts, and sold. He also was a key executive driving the successful restructuring and split sale of a public company, MIPS Technologies, a spin off from Stanford.
He currently advises a number of entities, including the Stanford Center for Image Systems Engineering, the Biswal Pain Imaging Lab at Stanford, and Playground Global a start-up incubator in Palo Alto.
Dave holds 13 patents.
Sumit K. Subudhi, MD/PhD
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Sumit Subudhi is a medical oncologist and immunologist whose research focuses on the mechanisms and pathways within the immune system that are responsible for tumor rejection and clinical benefit. Dr. Subudhi’s medical training began when he enrolled in the MD/PhD program at The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1998. Dr. Subudhi’s predoctoral studies included examining the role of B7-H1 (PD-L1), an immune checkpoint, in regulating T cell–mediated immune responses. He completed . . .
. . . his PhD in 2004, his MD in 2007, his internal medicine residency at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in 2009, and his medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in 2013. During his medical training, Dr. Subudhi became interested in the field of tumor immunology and subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. James P. Allison’s laboratory at MSKCC. In Dr. Allison’s laboratory (now at MD Anderson), Dr. Subudhi began to examine the effects of targeting immune checkpoints (e.g., CTLA-4 and PD-1) in prostate cancer and continues to uncover the mechanisms that tumors use to evade the immune system.
After completing his fellowship at MSKCC, Dr. Subudhi was appointed as an Advanced Scholar Instructor at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2013, and more recently (2014) as an Assistant Professor in Genitourinary Medical Oncology. His focus is on investigating optimal combinations of immune checkpoint blockade-based therapies and on developing immunological biomarkers to predict treatment responses, with the hope of ultimately producing durable and even curative responses in patients with prostate cancer. Dr. Subudhi was awarded the Prostate Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award in 2014 to pursue these studies. Dr. Subudhi has also been investigating the immunological differences between primary prostate cancer and the bone metastasis microenvironment.
Jedd Wolchok, MD/PhD
MSKCC
Jedd Wolchok is Chief of the Immuno-Oncology Service and holds The Lloyd J. Old Chair in Clinical Investigation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). He is also head of the Swim Across America – Ludwig Collaborative Laboratory; Associate Director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy (LCCI); SU2C–ACS Lung Cancer Dream Team Co-leader and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at MSK. Dr. Wolchok is a clinician-scientist exploring innovative immunotherapeutic strategies in . . .
. . . laboratory models, and a principal investigator in numerous pivotal clinical trials. He specializes in the treatment of melanoma. The focus of his translational research laboratory is to investigate innovative means to modulate the immune response to cancer as well as to better understand the mechanistic basis for sensitivity and resistance to currently available immunotherapies.
