MCLC Executive Committee Election Results Are In

The Lymphoma Research Foundation is pleased to announce two new members of the Mantle Cell Lymphoma Consortium (MCLC) Executive Committee: Elias Campo, MD, PhD and Brad Kahl, MD.

Drs. Campo and Kahl were nominated and elected to the Executive Committee by their peers on the MCLC at the March 2008 Mantle Cell Lymphoma Workshop. They will serve a 3-year term starting in September 2008. Their terms will briefly overlap with Joseph Connors, MD, FRCPC (British Columbia Cancer Agency) and Owen O’Connor, MD, PhD (Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University) who will step down in March 2008.

Continuing members of the MCLC Executive Committee include: Michael Williams, MD – MCLC Chairman (University of Virginia School of Medicine), Martin Dreyling, PD, MD (University of Munich-Grosshadern), and John Leonard, MD (Wiell Medical College of Cornell University).

NEW MCLC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Dr. Elias Campo is Chief of the Hematopathology Unit and Clinical Director of the Center for Biomedical Diagnosis within the Hospital Clinic at the University of Barcelona in Spain. He received his medical training at the University of Barcelona and completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD. Dr. Campo has been conducting lymphoma research for 19 years, 13 of which have been focused on MCL.

Dr. Campo became involved in the MCLC in 2005 when he received a three-year grant from LRF to study the molecular mechanisms associated with clinical progress and drug resistance to MCL. Dr. Campo, in collaboration with Dr. Andreas Rosenwald (Institute of Pathology in Würzburg, Germany), is using microarray technology to examine the genetic alterations that occur in MCL and determine how they impact tumor development. He is also investigating the mechanisms that control the clinical outcome of MCL and has successfully developed a prognostic model based on specific genes that may be applied in routine practice to more precisely predict the evolution of a patient’s disease. With the funding he received from LRF, Dr. Campo has also identified several novel drugs capable of killing MCL cells through new biological mechanisms. A clinical trial with one of the drugs has already begun.

Dr. Brad Kahl is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He is the Director of the UW Lymphoma Service and Clinical Research Director for Hematologic Malignancies at the Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center. He received his medical degree from Tufts University and completed his post-graduate training at the University of Wisconsin, where he was appointed faculty in 2000.

Dr. Kahl’s research focuses on the development of novel treatments for lymphoma patients, with emphasis on the development of targeted therapies. He has been studying MCL for the past eight years, and is the principal investigator of multiple clinical trials at the University of Wisconsin. His research suggests that maintenance rituximab may help prolong remission in MCL. Dr. Kahl’s current studies are attempting to determine if there is a role for bortezomib as part of a front-line treatment strategy.