2025 Giants of Cancer Care: OncLive® Honors 13 Cancer Care Pioneers

For the 13th consecutive year, OncLive is honored to recognize oncology leaders whose innovations have contributed to immeasurable improvements in outcomes for countless patients with cancer. The 13 winners of the 2025 Giants of Cancer Care awards have made their mark with novel therapies and protocols across the spectrum of care.

Breast Cancer

• Carey's work is devoted to the understanding and characterization of molecular subtypes of breast cancer to further prevention and treatment advances.
• Through collaboration with Charles M. Perot, PhD, and Robert C. Millikan, PhD, Carey discovered that young African American women are at a higher risk of developing the poor-prognosis basal-like breast cancer subtype.
• Carey is a global expert in triple-negative breast cancer, having led the first trial evaluating a new treatment regimen in this patient population.
• She led a National Cancer Institute (NCI)–sponsored trial in HER2-positive breast cancer that illustrated that tumor characteristics, including immune cell activation and subtype, were critical to outcomes with dual HER2-targeted therapy.
• Carey is a member of the NCI Breast Cancer Steering Committee, cochair of the NCI-sponsored Alliance Breast Committee, cochair of the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium Steering Committee, and member of the board of directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Community Outreach/Education

• Tefferi has been a faculty member for several national board review courses, including those sponsored by Harvard Medical School, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and George Washington University.
• Tefferi has published more than 1000 articles, reviews, abstracts, and book chapters across several peer-reviewed journals.
• He received the Henry M. Stratton Medal for Clinical/Translational Science, American Society of Hematology in 2016.
• He was a member of the World Health Organization classification committee for myeloid neoplasms, which has helped revise diagnostic criteria. He also was the lead study author on a paper outlining proposals for revised International Working Group–European LeukemiaNet criteria for anemia response in myelofibrosis.
• Tefferi is editor in chief of Blood Cancer Journal, as well as an associate editor for the American Journal of Hematology, Hematological Oncology, and Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
• In 2024, he coauthored a paper on the challenges associated with establishing end points for myelofibrosis clinical trials and the importance of selecting a standardized set of primary end points for studies in this disease. The paper was published in The Lancet Haematology.

Gastrointestinal Cancer

• Wolpin is the coprimary investigator for the Pancreatic Cancer Cohort Consortium (PanScan), a National Cancer Institute (NCI)–based, multi-institutional collective that studies the inherited genetic causes of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). PanScan performed the first genomewide study of the correlations between genetic variation and PDAC risk and identified the first genome regions associated with sporadic PDAC risk.
• He is chair of the NCI Pancreatic Cancer Detection Consortium Steering Committee.
• Wolpin leads a PDAC biospecimen bank at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that collects patient blood specimens,
  tumor samples, and data to provide information for early detection and predictive biomarker research.
• Wolpin received a grant from the Lustgarten Foundation to support his research on personalized medicine for PDAC.
• The Wolpin Lab has demonstrated connections between metabolism alterations and pancreatic cancer development. Wolpin led a 2013 study that was the first to show that insulin resistance is a classical risk factor
  of subclinical PDAC, as well as a paraneoplastic syndrome that can be caused by subclinical PDAC. Additionally, in 2014, a study from the Wolpin Lab showed that pancreatic tumors cause amino acid elevations several years before diagnosis.

Genitourinary Cancers

• Lara’s research is dedicated to the development of new strategies to treat patients with cancer of the genitourinary tract and lungs. He has seen several clinical trials through from phase 1 to phase 3 completion.
  He received the Faculty Research Award from UC Davis School of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine in 2018.
• Lara is a coauthor on several trials evaluating novel targeted inhibition strategies in patients with advanced prostate and urothelial cancer, including strategies aimed at PARP, AKR1C3, EphrinB2, and ATR.
• Much of Lara’s research extends to renal cell carcinoma (RCC). He has been an investigator on work in clear cell and non–clear cell subtypes, including the phase 3 EVEREST (SWOG S0931; NCT01120249) and KEYNOTE-679(NCT03260894) trials, which evaluated adjuvant everolimus (Afinitor) in patients with completely resected, very high-risk clear cell RCC, and the combination of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and epacadostat as first-line therapy for patients with metastatic clear cell RCC, respectively. He was involved in the phase 2 PAPMET trial (NCT02761057), which evaluated sunitinib (Sutent), cabozantinib (Cabometyx), crizotinib (Xalkori), and savolitinib in patients with papillary histology.
• In addition to his work in novel drug development, Lara has been an early advocate for eradicating barriers to cancer clinical trial enrollment. He published a study in 2008 looking at the effects of a mass media campaign in overcoming existing accrual challenges.
• Lara is a member of multiple professional societies, including the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the European Society for Medical Oncology, and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

Head & Neck Cancers

• Pfister was the first author of a study that examined predictive biomarkers of response to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in head and neck cancer. The study’s findings indicated that PD-L1 status and T-cell inflamed gene expression profile could be useful for characterizing response to pembrolizumab in this patient population.
• Pfister’s research interests include the link between the human papillomavirus (HPV) and head and neck cancers. He has advocated for the importance of HPV vaccination in order to reduce cancer risk.
• In 2011, he was honored with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s Willet F. Whitmore Award for Clinical Excellence.
• He is a pioneer in organ preservation treatment approaches, which aim to maintain patients’ organ function without sacrificing treatment efficacy.
• He was named to Castle Connolly’s list of America’s Top Doctors from 2023 to 2025.
• Pfister is on the NCCN board of directors, chairs the NCCN Head and Neck Cancers Panel, is on the editorial board for the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and is a member of the NCCN Guidelines Steering Committee.

Leukemia

• Stock is cochair of the Leukemia Committee for the National Cancer Institute–supported Alliance, a Clinical Trials Cooperative Group developed with the goal of leading practice-changing trials across oncology.
• She was an investigator on the phase 3 INO-VATE trial (NCT01564784), findings from which supported the 2017 FDA approval of inotuzumab ozogamicin (Besponsa) for the treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
• Stock led the phase 2 CALGB 10403 trial (NCT00558519). Its results showed that the induction regimen used in pediatric patients with newly diagnosed ALL during the phase 3 AALL0232 trial (NCT00075725) was feasible and effective in adolescent and adult patients aged up to 40 years with newly diagnosed ALL.
• She directs the Adolescent & Young Adult (AYA) Oncology Program at University of Chicago Medicine. The group’s mission is to provide access to innovative clinical trials and clinical care to AYA patients with cancer.
• Stock is an associate editor for Blood Advances, and she is a councillor for the American Society of Hematology.

Lymphoma

• Cavalli is the founder and was the scientific director of the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland until 2017.
• He received the 2024 American Association for Cancer Research Distinguished Public Service Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research.
• Cavalli played a key role in the clinical investigations of etoposide (VP-16), and he contributed to the research that helped develop other chemotherapy agents such as cisplatin, carboplatin, and paclitaxel.
• He was an editor of Textbook of Medical Oncology, Fourth Edition, which was published in 2009.
• While serving as president of the Union for International Cancer Control, Cavalli helped launch My Child Matters, an initiative that originated in 2005 to improve survival rates for children with cancer from low—and middle-income countries. He also helped create the World Cancer Declaration, designed to promote equal access to cancer treatment.
• He has published more than 600 articles in peer-reviewed journals and contributed to other oncology books. Cavalli was the founding editor and editor in chief of Annals of Oncology, and he is on the editorial boards of several other journals.
• Cavalli helped establish the International Extranodal Lymphoma Study Group, the European School of Oncology, the Institute for Research in Biomedicine, the Bellinzona Institutes of Sciences, and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Early Clinical Trials Group.

Myeloma

• Usmani has won multiple awards, including the LLS Scholar in Clinical Research Award, the 2018 Celgene Young Investigator Award for Clinical Research in Hematology, the Multiple Myeloma Excellence in Clinical Research Award at the 2020 COMy Congress, the Bart Barlogie Young Investigator Award in Clinical and Translational Research at the 18th International Myeloma Workshop, and the 2022 Career Development Achievement Award from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
• Usmani’s research interests include high-risk multiple myeloma and other plasma cell disorders.
• He is the chair of the Alliance Myeloma Committee, a fellow at the Royal College of Physicians, a board member of
  the International Myeloma Society, and a fellow at the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
• Usmani has authored more than 260 peer-reviewed papers.
• He was the lead author for the phase 3 CEPHEUS trial (NCT03652064), which was published in 2025. The trial used MRD-negativity rate as the primary end point and showed that daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj (subcutaneous daratumumab; Darzalex Faspro) plus bortezomib (Velcade), lenalidomide (Revlimid), and dexamethasone (D-VRd) improved outcomes vs VRd alone in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who were ineligible for or deferred transplant.

Prevention/Genetics

• Offit and his team published the first prospective series describing the outcome of preventive ovarian surgery and screening in women at hereditary risk for breast/ovarian cancer, and his research team identified the most common mutation associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer among those of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.
• Offit received the 2023 Basser Global Prize from the Basser Center for BRCA, the American Cancer Society Career Research Recognition Award, and the ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology)–American Cancer Society Prevention Award for research in cancer prevention.
• He led the first ASCO policy statement after the identification of BRCA1 and BRCA2 and founded one of the first clinical cancer genetics services in 1992.
• Offit serves on the Genetic Counseling Advisory Board of Weill Cornell Medicine and the Scientific Advisory Committee of the BRCA Research & Cure Alliance.
• He wrote Clinical Cancer Genetics: Risk Counseling & Management, coedited Genetic Predisposition to Cancer, An Issue of Hematology/Oncology Clinics of North America (Volume 24-5), and wrote the introduction to To the Marrow, which details a patient’s journey through bone marrow transplantation.
• Offit cofounded the BRCA Founder Outreach Study, which offers targeted BRCA testing free to participants and seeks to pioneer new ways to integrate genetic testing into medical care.

Sarcomas

• Gorlick is the principal investigator of the Gorlick Laboratory at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. His laboratory research is dedicated to the translational study of osteosarcoma, using proteomic and genomic research methods to detect therapeutic targets in this disease that may be further investigated in preclinical and clinical trials. The Gorlick Laboratory has evaluated more than 80 novel anticancer drugs in xenograft models derived from patients with osteosarcoma, which influenced the inception of osteosarcoma clinical trials within the Children’s Oncology Group.
• He is the lead study author of the PIVOT program in osteosarcoma, which is evaluating the in vivo efficacy of the
  B7-H3–directed antibody-drug conjugate ifinatamab deruxtecan (I-DXd; DS-7300). This research has demonstrated that I-DXd induced tumor-regressing anticancer activity across several pediatric solid tumor models, including osteosarcoma models.
• Gorlick’s involvement with the Children’s Oncology Group led to the development of one of the largest osteosarcoma biorepositories in the world, the Osteosarcoma Explorer.
• Gorlick was an investigator in the preclinical trial that revealed the role of the ezrin protein in osteosarcoma metastasis and disease outcomes in pediatric patients.
• He has received numerous awards, including the 2015 Sarcoma Foundation of America Nobility in Science Award, the 2016 Albert Einstein College of Medicine Saul R. Korey Award in Translational Science and Medicine, and was among America’s Most Honored Professionals Top 1% in 2016. Gorlick also received the 2024 American Society of
  Clinical Oncology Pediatric Oncology Award for his work in childhood cancers and osteosarcoma.
• Gorlick has participated in research that demonstrated the basis of resistance to antifolates in osteosarcoma and acute lymphocytic leukemia.

Supportive, Palliative, and/or Geriatric Care

• Known as one of the founders/pioneers of the geriatric oncology field, Balducci published the first major medical textbook on the subject, Geriatric Oncology, in 1992.
• He cofounded the International Society of Geriatric Oncology in 2000.
• Balducci received the first B.J. Kennedy Award for Scientific Excellence in Geriatric Oncology from the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
• He established a special interest group on aging and cancer within the American Geriatric Society in 1991, cochaired the first subcommittee on aging in Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group in 1992, and cochaired the first NCCN committee on cancer and aging in 1998—the same year the first guidelines on the management of cancer in older patients were published.
• He edited Comprehensive Geriatric Oncology, 1st Edition with William B. Ershler and Gary H. Lyman, “Anemia in the Elderly” with William B. Ershler and John M. Bennett, Geriatric Oncology: Treatment, Assessment and Management with Arti Hurria, Biological Basis of Geriatric Oncology (Cancer Treatment and Research Book 124) with Martine Extermann, and Blood Disorders in the Elderly with William B. Ershler and Giovanni de Gaetano.
• Balducci penned a poignant article in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society following the unexpected passing of his wife, noting missteps that occurred in her care and highlighting how instruments to diagnose frailty and vulnerability in older patients are inadequate. He concluded the piece with 3 important recommendations for care in older patients.

Thoracic Malignancies

• Kris was at the helm of chemotherapy and targeted therapy drug discovery for lung cancer and contributed to the development of antiemetics, which have helped countless individuals avoid the adverse effects of nausea and vomiting.
• He was the senior study author of research that found evidence of PIK3CA mutations in lung adenocarcinomas as well as EGFR exon 19 deletions and L858R mutations, which helped establish a blueprint for precision medicine in lung cancer.
• In 2009, Kris founded the Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium, which continues to foster the integration of precision medicine into routine care.
• Kris received the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s inaugural Humanitarian Award in 2011. The award honors an oncologist who exceeds expectations and provides exceptional patient care.
• He is the former chief of the thoracic oncology service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
• Kris was the honoree at the 2024 Annual Evening of Innovation gala hosted by the Lung Cancer Research Foundation.

Translational Science

• Andreeff received the 2016 Waun Ki Hong Award for Excellence in Team Science from the American Association for Cancer Research.
• He is the head and director of the Section of Molecular Hematology and Therapy at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, which conducts translational research in cancer and leukemia.
• His 2006 research with BH3 mimetics led to the clinical development of venetoclax (Venclexta) as monotherapy and in combination with hypomethylating agents. Based on these findings, venetoclax-based combination regimens have gained FDA approval for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
• In both preclinical and clinical studies, Andreeff’s team was the first to identify that the tyrosine kinase inhibitor sorafenib (Nexavar) inhibits FLT3 ITD in AML, inspiring the further development of other FLT3 inhibitors.
• Andreeff led research that discovered that BAD, a proapoptotic member of the BCL-2 family, functions as an antiapoptotic protein and is invariably phosphorylated in all patients with AML. This finding has led to the global initiation of clinical trials investigating molecular therapies targeted toward these apoptosis regulators.
• Andreeff is a pioneer in flow cytometry. He established the first flow cytometry laboratory at the University of Heidelberg in Germany in 1971 and organized the first European flow cytometry conference.

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