Dr. Antonia directs a translational research program that has the overall goal of developing novel immunotherapeutic strategies for the treatment of cancer patients. The basic research component of the program is to perform preclinical proof-of-principle testing of new vaccines, and to determine the mechanisms by which the tumor microenvironment is hostile to T cells. The vaccines currently under development are a GM-CSF/CD40 ligand gene-modified tumor cell vaccine, and dendritic cell based vaccines. With respect to the study of the tumor microenvironment, indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) has been identified as a significant immunosuppressive enzyme produced by tumor cells. A competitive inhibitor of IDO is currently being developed as a tumor vaccine augmentation strategy. Optimization and safety testing of the vaccines and augmentation strategies in anticipation of FDA IND applications is also performed.

The clinical research component of the translational research program involves the testing of the vaccines and augmentation strategies in cancer patients. An infrastructure has been put into place to accomplish this. A diverse group of investigators at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center needed to accomplish these logistically complex clinical trials has been formed, and a vaccine production facility that operates with standard operating procedures compliant with current good manufacturing practices is operational. A phase I B7-1 gene-modified autologous tumor cell vaccine trial involving patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma has been completed, and the phase II trial in ongoing.

A graduate of Brooklyn College, Dr. Gorlick received his MD degree from the State University of New York Health Science Center, Brooklyn and completed an internship and residency in pediatrics at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.  He was a fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Faculty Member for eight years before joining the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2004 as an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Pharmacology and Division Chief of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore. In 2005 he became the Vice Chairman of Pediatrics. At the Albert Einstein College of Medicine he is also the Director of the Sarcoma Research Laboratory and the Chair of the Data Safety and Monitoring Committee

Dr. Gorlick's laboratory is interested in drug resistance in osteosarcoma focusing on potential therapeutic targets and mechanisms of pathogenesis with view to improving treatment options.  His clinical interests are in the care of children and young adults afflicted with sarcomas.  Since the time of his initial ASCO awards, his research has been continuously supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute, NIH, the Leukemia Society of America (now called the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society) as well as other foundations.  He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and reviews, several of which have been cited over 100 times by others in their own research publications. 

Much of Dr. Gorlick's work involves national and international collaborations.  He has held many leadership positions in the Children's Cancer Group and Children's Oncology Group cooperative clinical trials organizations. He was instrumental at initiating the Children's Oncology Group's Bone Tumor Banking Effort. At present he serves as the Vice Chair of the Bone Tumor Disease Committee of the Children's Oncology Group. He serves as a member of the Developmental Therapeutics Group of the Sarcoma Alliance for Research Through Collaboration (SARC). He serves on many advisory and editorial boards and on review panels for the NIH and other funding entities. 

Dr. Gorlick is viewed as an international leader in translational research on osteosarcoma and he will lecture to us on, "Current Concepts on the Molecular Biology of Osteosarcoma."

Dr. Steven Grant is associate director for translational research and co-leader of the Cancer Cell Biology program at the Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center. He holds the Shirley Carter and Sture Gordon Olson chair in oncology and is a professor of medicine, pharmacology, biochemistry and microbiology. Grant is an internationally recognized cancer researcher whose work has established a new approach to cancer treatment. Grant has demonstrated that combinations of signaling inhibitors induce programmed cell death in cancer cells and that blocking pathways that cancer cells use to escape treatment causes them to activate a suicide program. His concepts are now in Phase I clinical trials at Massey and other National Cancer Institute-designated centers including those at Johns Hopkins, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and the MD Anderson Cancer Center. His focus has been on leukemias, lymphomas and other blood disorders, but much of his research has implications for new treatment strategies for solid tumors as well. Grant Joined Massey in 1988. He has had continuous funding from NCI and other sources for more than 24 years.

Since receiving her Doctor of Osteopathy degree from Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Dr. LoRusso has focused her career on cancer drug development -- initially preclinically with a subsequent and present focus on clinical investigation.  This work has led to successful competition, for over 14 years, as the PI of the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded Phase I U01 grant at Wayne State University/Karmanos Cancer Institute.  Her publications reflect her integral involvement in the development of early therapeutics and include her work with many now approved anti-cancer agents, including capecitabine, gefitinib, zoledronic acid, lapatanib, ixabepilone, and Recentin, as examples.

Dr. LoRusso co-chairs the NCI/CTEP Investigational Drug Steering Committee and the Experimental Therapeutics Committee for the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG), and she has served on numerous committees for the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and AACR-NCI-EORTC.  She has recently served as track leader for the Clinical Trials track of the Cancer Education Committee of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).  Having served either ad hoc or as an appointed member on multiple study sections in the past, including such sections as subcommittee D of Program Projects grants, and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Department of Defense (DOD) study sections, she currently serves on the Clinical Oncology Subcommittee for Quick Trials grants study section.

She has been integrally involved in cancer education, teaching both medical and graduate students in such courses as cancer biology, pharmacology and breast cancer, as well as internal medicine residents and oncology fellows through rounding and clinical hands-on experience.  In addition, she has successfully mentored junior faculty who have received such honors as NCI peer-reviewed funding, the ASCO Young Investigator Award, as well as mentored numerous junior clinical faculty in clinical trial design and execution with successful LOI and protocol submissions and acceptance.  Early clinical therapeutics and novel trial designs comprise the focus of her career objectives.  In 1999, she was awarded the Hero of Breast Cancer award and in 2004 the Bennett J. Cohen Educational Leadership Award for Medical Research.

Mace L. Rothenberg, MD, is a professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Ingram Professor of Cancer Research at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

A 1982 graduate of New York University School of Medicine, Dr. Rothenberg trained as an intern and resident in internal medicine at Vanderbilt University from 1982 to 1985. He obtained his medical oncology training at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) from 1985 to 1988 and served as special assistant to the director, division of cancer treatment, from 1988 to 1991. In 1991, he was appointed assistant professor, then associate professor, in the department of medicine, division of medical oncology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, and executive officer of the Southwest Oncology Group. In 1998, Dr. Rothenberg returned to Vanderbilt, where he is currently a professor of medicine, the Ingram Professor of Cancer Research, director of Phase I drug development, co-leader of the experimental therapeutics orogram, and director of clinical and translational research for the Vanderbilt SPORE in gastrointestinal cancer.

Dr. Rothenberg is active in clinical-translational research (supported by U01 and P50 grants from the NCI) as well as teaching and mentoring early-career investigators (supported by a K24 grant from the NCI). He has served as an ad hoc reviewer on several NIH study sections. He has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, primarily in the areas of early-stage drug development, gastrointestinal malignancies and ovarian cancer. He serves on the editorial boards of several leading medical journals, including the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Investigational New Drugs, Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology and Clinical Colorectal Cancer. Dr. Rothenberg’s research focuses on the evaluation of new drugs in humans from clinical, pharmacologic, biologic and genetic perspectives. His work was critical to the development and eventual US Food and Drug Administration approval of irinotecan (CPT-11, Camptosar®) in 1996, oxaliplatin (Eloxatin®) in 2002 for colorectal cancer and gemcitabine (Gemzar®) in 1996 for pancreatic cancer.