Here are some of the senior recruits of the past year:
Carol R. Bradford, MD, MS, FACS, a physician-scientist in otolaryngology – head and neck surgery, was recruited from the University of Michigan to become dean of Ohio State’s College of Medicine (COM) and vice president for Health Sciences at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center. Bradford, who also holds the Leslie H. and Abigail S. Wexner Dean’s Chair in Medicine, specializes in head and neck cancer surgery and reconstruction, cutaneous oncology and sentinel lymph node biopsy. At Michigan, she had been executive vice dean of Academic Affairs at the medical school and chief academic officer at Michigan Medicine for four years. Her research interests include identifying predictive biomarkers for response of head and neck tumors to chemotherapy and radiation, and developing novel therapeutics.
Matthew Kalady, MD, was recruited to Ohio State from the Cleveland Clinic to become director of the Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery in the Department of Surgery. He also is medical director of the Cancer Genetics Program at the OSUCCC – James, where he’ll work with genetic counselors to expand the program in coordination with the Division of Human Genetics. Kalady has 15 years of clinical experience treating colon and rectal cancers, and is an expert in minimally invasive surgery. He has a funded basic and translational science laboratory focusing on colorectal cancer genetics and has led clinical trials. At the Cleveland Clinic, he served as co-director of the Comprehensive Colorectal Cancer Program and as director of the Hereditary Colorectal Neoplasia Center.
Xuefeng Liu, MD, was recruited to Ohio State from Georgetown University as a professor in the Department of Pathology. At Georgetown, Liu was a professor in the departments of Pathology and Oncology, co-director of the Center for Cell Reprogramming, and director of the Telomeres and Cell Immortalization Program. His research focuses on patient-derived cell models and the roles of papillomavirus oncoproteins and telomerase in cell immortalization, an early stage of cancer. Liu co-invented CR (Conditional Reprogramming) technology, which allows rapid and infinite propagation of patient-derived normal and tumor cells. The method is now the basis for cell culture facilities at several universities and the NCI. The American Type Culture Collection also uses the technology to biobank the NCI and Broad Institute cell culture repositories.
Ted Yank, MHA, was named senior director of research administration at the OSUCCC. He has operational and fiscal responsibility for cancer research at the OSUCCC and will work collaboratively with research and clinical senior leaders. Yank came to Ohio State from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, where he had served since 2004 as associate director for administration at the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center. He was instrumental in creating the center, helping it achieve NCI designation in 2007 and obtaining comprehensive status in 2015. Before working at Baylor, he helped create and achieve NCI recognition for the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa and served as associate director for administration.
Uma Borate, MD, MS, was recruited to Ohio State from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSC) in Portland, Ore., where she was a hematologist/oncologist at the Knight Cancer Center. At Ohio State, she is an associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology. Her clinical specialty is blood cancers with a focus on myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Her research focuses on new therapies for these blood cancers and early detection of these myeloid malignancies. She is the leader for the MDS and MPN clinical trial disease group at Ohio State, and she also is the national lead and site investigator for several early-phase, industry-supported MDS and AML studies in both upfront and relapsed/refractory disease.
Bei Liu, MD, MPH, was recruited to Ohio State from the Medical University of South Carolina as a member of the Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology at the OSUCCC – James. She also is a professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology. Liu has an NIH-funded research program focused on cancer immunotherapy, mucosal and tumor immunology, and innate immunity. She is interested in understanding chaperone biology in B cells, plasma cells and dendritic cells in both normal and pathological conditions. Her lab team discovered that the chaperone grp94 is required for multiple myeloma cell survival, which is mediated in part by the Wnt target survivin. Her team also discovered that grp94 critically regulates dendritic cell function in the tumor microenvironment. Liu says her team’s goal is to utilize knowledge learned from the immune system’s responses to cellular stress and gut bacteria to develop novel cancer therapeutics.