Panel discussion: emerging treatment options in oncology
We've convened five experts from a diverse range of oncology disciplines to discuss emerging cancer treatment options. Chaired by Robin Jones (The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden, both London, UK), the panel discussion focuses on the potential of genomics in advancing cancer care, questions what resources we need to achieve precision medicine in oncology and explores a precision medicine approach to clinical trials.
The panel comprises topic leaders in the field: Bettina Ryll (Melanoma Patient Network Europe), William Audeh (Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center, CA, USA), Niven R Narain (BERG LLC, MA, USA) and Ursula Garczarek (Cytel, Germany).
The panelists discuss:
What is preventing the widespread adoption of routine genomic testing in oncology?
What resources do we require to achieve precision medicine in oncology?
Optimizing clinical trial designs and the road to precision oncology
Who may this interest?
Medical oncologists
Surgical oncologists
Radiation oncologists
Oncology nurses
Clinical trial investigators
Translational cancer researchers
Researchers/ scientists
Bettina Ryll
Melanoma Patient Network Europe
Bettina Ryll holds a medical degree from the Free University of Berlin (Germany) and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from University College London (UK).
After losing her husband to melanoma, she founded the Melanoma Patient Network Europe and developed a special interest in patient-centric clinical research, innovative trial designs and novel drug development concepts, such as MAPPS (medicines' adaptive pathways to patients). Lately, she focuses on patient-relevant outcomes and sustainable healthcare models ensuring access to innovation for patients.
Niven R Narain
Co-founder, President and CEO
BERG, LLC (MA, USA)
Niven R Narain is Co-founder, President and CEO of BERG, LLC, a Boston-based biopharma driving next-generation drug and diagnostic development by combining patient-driven biology and Bayesian AI. He has been recognized as a pioneer in technology development at the intersection of Biology and artificial intelligence and is the inventor of the Interrogative Biology® platform that has unraveled actionable disease insight leading to both de novo and repurposed development. He has overseen development of deep pipeline in oncology, metabolic, rare, and central nervous system diseases, namely BPM 31510 currently in Phase II trials for cancer, covered by over 550 issued and pending US and international patents.
Robin Jones
Team Leader in Sarcoma Clinical Trials and Consultant Medical Oncologist
The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden (both London, UK)
Robin Jones is a medical oncologist with a specialist interest in bone and soft issue sarcomas. He has been principle investigator on numerous Phase I, II and III trials.
In January 2010 he was appointed Associate Professor and Director of the Sarcoma Program at the University of Washington (WA, USA) and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (WA, USA). He led a successful clinical and research program and continued his translational and trial-based research. The laboratory work with Seth Pollack evaluated novel immunotherapeutic targets in bone and soft tissue sarcomas and has led to several early-phase immunotherapeutic clinical trials.
He is Consultant Medical Oncologist and Reader at the Royal Marsden and ICR. He is currently working on several trials of investigational agents in sarcomas as well as laboratory-based studies with Paul Huang.
Ursula Garczarek
Associate Principal of Strategic Consulting
Cytel (Germany)
Ursula Garczarek is an Associate Principal of Strategic Consulting at Cytel. She has extensive experience in providing statistical support for clinical and non-clinical aspects of product development within both pharmaceutical and consumer companies.
As a member of Cytel's Strategic Consulting team, Ursula provides guidance to trial sponsors on optimizing their development strategy and successfully implementing trial design innovations. She applies new and pragmatic methodologies to address the needs and requirements of the sponsor within the regulatory environment.
Prior to Cytel, Ursula was the Program Leader Data Science at Unilever R&D (The Netherlands), and Biostatistician at Roche Diagnostics GmBH (Germany). She received her Ph.D. from the University of Dortmund (Germany), with a focus on complexity reduction in high-dimensional data spaces.
William Audeh
Medical Oncologist and Chief Medical Officer
Agendia (CA, USA)
William Audeh is a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer and the Chief Medical Officer of Agendia, with nearly 30 years of experience as a clinician and clinical researcher at the Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center where he continues to be a member of the Medical Staff. Prior to joining Agendia, and in addition to his clinical practice, he served as the former Director of the Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center and Medical Director of the Wasserman Breast Cancer Risk Reduction Program.
Audeh also served as Director of the Medical Oncology Training Program for Breast Surgery and Surgical Oncology Fellowships at Cedars-Sinai and is Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. Audeh has been Principal Investigator on a wide variety of national and international clinical and translational trials and has authored numerous publications in the field of breast cancer, cancer genomics and targeted cancer therapy. He is board certified on internal medicine and medical oncology and is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and American Association of Cancer Research.
Updated 14 January, 2020
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