The Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) announced that Bo Lu, M.D., Ph.D., of Thomas Jefferson University and the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson, has been appointed chair of the group's Translational Research Program (TRP) Committee's Lung Cancer Subcommittee. The RTOG TRP Committee supports the integration of new scientific discoveries into the design of multi-center clinical trials.
Dr. Lu is professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Jefferson, where he also serves as director of the department's Division of Molecular Radiation Biology. Prior to joining Jefferson in early 2011, Dr. Lu was associate professor in the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Cancer Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and director of the Department of Radiation Oncology's translational research program. He is also a visiting professor of radiation oncology at Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital, in Tianjing, China.
"As a member of RTOG's Translation Research Program Committee since 2009, it has been exciting to be part of research efforts incorporating novel cancer treatment strategies into the design of early phase, multicenter clinical trials," says Dr. Lu. Among Dr. Lu's basic science research interests are the development of drugs that cause tumor cells to be more sensitive to radiation therapy and that target lung cancer stem cells.
"Dr. Lu is internationally renowned for his work in translational radiation oncology, and I am enthusiastic about his leadership role with regard to guiding the RTOG's translational research agenda in lung cancer," says Adam Dicker, M.D., Ph.D, Professor and Chairman of Radiation O­ncology at Thomas Jefferson University and RTOG's Translational Research Program Chair. "He has demonstrated talent for applying findings from the laboratory into clinical research," remarks Dr. Dicker.
Dr. Lu received his Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from Baylor School of Medicine and his doctorate in medicine from Shanghai Medical University in China. He completed his residency in radiation oncology at the University of Southern California. Dr. succeeds Quynh Le, M.D., Ph.D. from Stanford University who recently was named chair of RTOG's Head and Neck Cancer Committee.
The Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) is administered by the American College of Radiology (ACR), and located in the ACR Center for Clinical Research in Philadelphia, PA. RTOG is a multi-institutional international clinical cooperative group funded primarily by National Cancer Institute grants CA21661, CA32115 and CA37422. RTOG has 40 years of experience in conducting clinical trials and is comprised of over 300 major research institutions in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The group currently is currently accruing to 40 studies that involve radiation therapy alone or in conjunction with surgery and/or chemotherapeutic drugs or which investigate quality of life issues and their effects on the cancer patient.