American Cancer Society Awards 4 New ACS Professorships

The American Cancer Society (ACS) recently announced 92 new research grant awards totaling $43.2 million. Among these, ACS proudly named four new ACS Professors: Dr. Smita Bhatia, Dr. Carol Greider, Dr. Electra Paskett, and Dr. William Sellers. These renowned scientists have demonstrated exceptional leadership and made lasting contributions to cancer research, deepening scientific understanding and influencing how the disease is addressed across the research and care continuum.

“The ACS Professor Award represents one of the highest honors in cancer research, celebrating top established scientists whose groundbreaking work has transformed their field,” said Dr. Kathy Goss, Senior Scientific Director of the Career Growth and Research Excellence program at ACS. “By supporting scientific innovation, mentorship, and service, this award empowers leaders to drive progress in cancer prevention, detection, treatment, and survivorship—ultimately improving lives across communities.”

ACS is also pleased to announce the renewal of five ACS Professorships for an additional term:

• Dawn Hershman, MD, Columbia University
• Yibin Kang, PhD, Princeton University
• Mary-Clare King, PhD, University of Washington
• Davide Ruggero, PhD, Columbia University
• Jennifer Temel, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital

ACS Professorships are awarded annually to provide financial support for the recipients to continue to pursue innovative avenues of study over the five-year term of their award. Details about the work of each of the four new ACS Professors are included below. Additional information about the ACS Professor award can be found on cancer.org.

Smita Bhatia, MD
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Bhatia is a nationally and internationally recognized physician scientist focused on survivorship in pediatric cancer.  She is the founding director of the Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship at at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and is the inaugural holder of the Gay and Bew White Endowed Chair in Pediatric Oncology. Dr. Bhatia serves as the Associate Chair for the Children’s Oncology Group, where she coordinates survivorship research across 200 pediatric oncology institutions in the U.S. and has published close to 500 peer-reviewed manuscripts, reflecting her considerable influence on the practice of medicine. With this award, Dr. Bhatia will develop new strategic initiatives to improve outcomes in adolescents diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) while focusing on continued and expanded mentorship for junior researchers at UAB.

Carol Greider, PhD
University of California, Santa Cruz

Dr. Greider won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine and the 2006 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research along with two of her colleagues for their discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase. This game-changing work fundamentally transformed our understanding of chromosome biology, with implications for many diseases including cancer. Dr. Grieder has continued to push forward the field of telomere research for the past 40 years, including new discoveries in the past two years related to chromosome end-specific telomere lengths. With this award, Dr. Grieder will continue to pursue this new line of investigation which promises to jumpstart new approaches for shortening telomeres as a means of treating cancer. Dr. Grieder is currently the Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Cell, & Developmental Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Electra Paskett, PhD, MSPH
The Ohio State University

Dr. Paskett is a visionary leader in the field of addressing disparities in cancer prevention, cancer control, and survivorship. Throughout her career, Dr. Paskett has developed and implemented multi-level interventions to increase screenings for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer and promote cancer prevention and robust survivorship in underserved communities, often working in transdisciplinary teams from across the country. In addition to serving as the Marion N. Rowley Professor of Cancer Research and the distinguished professor and director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control for the Department of Internal Medicine at the Ohio State University, Dr. Paskett is also a current member of the Board of Directors for the American Association for Cancer Research and the Director of the Cancer Control Program in the Alliance, where she continues to drive impactful collaborative efforts related to cancer prevention, control, and survivorship, among other leadership roles she holds. This award will enable Dr. Paskett to continue to move her important cancer prevention and control intervention work to a level that will ensure integration in clinical settings in order to have sustained impact on cancer health disparities.

William Sellers, MD
Broad Institute (Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard)

Dr. Sellers is widely recognized as a pioneer in cancer research, working at the intersection of cancer biology and cancer genomics. He is especially known for his important work that led to the identification of EGFR mutations in lung cancer which now underpins therapeutic treatments that have become the standard-of-care for patients. Throughout his career, Dr. Sellers has rigorously pursued new therapeutic interventions for the treatment of many types of cancer, often utilizing cutting edge techniques and spearheading the development of large-scale genomic and drug development resources like the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE), the Patient-Derived Xenograft Encyclopedia (PDXE). With this award, Dr. Sellers will expand his exploratory work to identify new potential therapeutic targets that can be leveraged to address drug resistance, including utilizing CRISPR to assess gene pairs and his newly developed CysMap methodology to identify unique drug-binding sites on proteins believed to be undruggable. Dr. Sellers currently serves as Director of the Cancer Program and is a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.