Featured Lectures

Thursday, March 22

1:30-2:15 pm
James Ewing Lecture
"Hormonal Control of Cancers: Something Old and Something New"
B. Mark Evers, MD
Director, Markey Cancer Center
Professor and Vice-chair for Research, Department of Surgery
Physician-in-Chief, Oncology Service Line
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY

2:15-3 pm
John Wayne Clinical Research Lecture
“Melanoma, a Kaleidoscopic View”
Alexander M.M. Eggermont, MD, PhD
Directeur Général Gustave Roussy
Professeur Oncologie, Université Paris-Sud
Villejuif, France

Friday, March 23

9-9:45 am
SSO Presidential Address
"The Fundamental Difference Between Cancer Treatment and Patient Care"
Kelly M. McMasters, MD, PhD
Ben A. Reid, Sr., MD Professor and Chair
The Hiram C. Polk Jr., MD Department of Surgery
University of Louisville School of Medicine
Louisville, KY

Saturday, March 24

9:45-10:30 am
American Cancer Society/SSO Basic Science Lecture
“Mixing It Up: Rewiring the Transcriptome of Pancreatic Cancer Cells and Surgeon Scientists”
Steven D. Leach, MD
Professor of Molecular and Systems Biology
Preston T. and Virginia R. Kelsey Distinguished Chair in Cancer
Director, Norris Cotton Cancer Center
Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine
Dartmouth – Hitchcock Health System
Hanover, New Hampshire

Featured Lectures Bios

B. Mark Evers, MD Director, Markey Cancer Center Professor and Vice-chair for Research, Department of Surgery Physician-in-Chief, Oncology Service Line University of Kentucky Lexington, KY

Dr. Evers was recruited to the University of Kentucky in 2009 as the Director of the Lucille P. Markey Cancer Center (MCC), Professor and Vice-chair for Research in the Department of Surgery, and Physician-in-Chief of the Oncology Service Line.  Over the next 3 years he led efforts to achieve NCI designation for the MCC in 2013.  This initiative, which is ongoing, included extensive work to address the numerous health disparities of the underserved populations of Appalachian Kentucky, a region with the highest cancer incidence and mortality in the United States.  In addition, Dr. Evers has led the expansion of the MCC network throughout Kentucky and western West Virginia, which currently lists 18 MCC affiliate institutions and 5 research partners.  Prior to his recruitment to Kentucky in 2009, Dr. Evers was a faculty member at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, Texas, for 20 years, where he served as Professor and Robertson-Poth Distinguished Chair in General Surgery and Director of the Sealy Center for Cancer Biology and the UTMB Cancer Center. 

Dr. Evers’ research on GI cancers has been continuously funded by the NIH for more than 20 years, including an NIH MERIT Award, multiple R01s, and a GI Cancer SPORE planning grant (P20).  He has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and reviews, including prominent publications in Nature, Cancer Cell, and PNAS.  In addition, he is the PI or multi-PI on 2 NCI T32 training grants and has mentored more than 80 students, fellows, and junior faculty during his career.  Throughout this time, he has received more than 30 awards, including the prestigious Flance-Karl Award from the American Surgical Association, and held numerous leadership positions in national and international organizations.  He is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP).  Dr. Evers has held the positions of Secretary and President of the Society of University Surgeons, Secretary and President of the Southern Surgical Association, and Senior Director of the American Board of Surgery.  He is currently Treasurer of the American Surgical Association.  Dr. Evers serves on the editorial boards of 3 journals, is a past and current full member of 3 NIH study sections, and acts as Associate Editor of the Sabiston Textbook of Surgery.  At the state level, Dr. Evers is a member of the Kentucky Lung Cancer Research Program Governance Board and a member of the Kentucky Colon Cancer Screening Program Advisory Committee.  In 2013, he was elected to the Mid-South Board of Directors for the American Cancer Society (ACS) and in 2015 was appointed as a full member of the ACS-IRG study section. 
 

Alexander M.M. Eggermont, MD, PhD Directeur Général Gustave Roussy Professeur Oncologie, Université Paris-Sud Villejuif, France

Alexander M.M. Eggermont is the Director General of Gustave Roussy Comprehensive Cancer Center, Cancer Campus Grand Paris in France. He serves as a Professor of Oncology at Paris-Sud University. Previously, he served at a Professor of Surgical Oncology from 2003-2016, and endowed chair of International Networking in Cancer Research (2011-2020) at Erasmus University MC Rotterdam. He has also served as the Joseph Maisin Chair in Oncology at Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. Dr. Eggermont received his PhD in tumor immunology and was a fellow of the NCI Surgery Branch under S.A. Rosenberg in the United States. His specialties include immunotherapy, melanoma, sarcoma and isolated limb perfusion, drug development, advanced in vivo imaging models, and nanoparticles. He has over 700 peer-reviewed publications, plus 36 PhD theses at the Erasmus University MC. His work has been cited over 32,000 times.

Dr. Eggermont’s international functions include the following: President European Academy of Cancer Sciences; President Cancer Core Europe; ECCO: Past President; EORTC: Past President, past Chairman Melanoma Group; ASCO: Past Member Board of Directors (Surgery Chair); AACR: Past Deputy Editor Clinical Cancer Research; Deutsche Krebshilfe: Chair International Jury for Comprehensive Cancer Centres Program; Unicancer: Vice-President French Federation of Cancer Centers, Chair Research; Member Board of Trustees CRUK; Member Wissenschaftsrat, Germany; European Journal of Cancer: Editor-in-Chief; and Appointed advisor to Kazakhstan Government for Cancer Care Strategic Development. In addition, Dr. Eggermont has received the Presidential Medal from Kazakhstan and Légion d’Honneur from France.
 

Kelly M. McMasters, MD, PhD Ben A. Reid, Sr., MD Professor and Chair The Hiram C. Polk Jr., MD Department of Surgery University of Louisville School of Medicine Louisville, KY

Dr. McMasters is the Ben A. Reid, Sr. Professor and Chair of the Hiram C. Polk, Jr., MD Department of Surgery, University of Louisville School of Medicine, and Director of the Multidisciplinary Melanoma Clinic, James Graham Brown Cancer Center, Louisville, Kentucky. He earned his MD at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and his PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from Rutgers University. He completed his Fellowship in Surgical Oncology at the University of Texas-MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He is the author and Principal Investigator of the Sunbelt Melanoma Trial, a multi-institutional study involving 3500 patients from 79 institutions across North America. His research has been funded by the American Cancer Society, the National Institutes of Health, and the Melanoma Research Foundation, among other agencies. He has two patents for his research inventions. Dr. McMasters is currently President of the Society of Surgical Oncology and the Western Surgical Association, Secretary of the Southern Surgical Association (2014-2019), and Vice President of the Society of Surgical Chairs.  He was a member of the Melanoma Staging Committee of the American Joint Commission on Cancer and is former President of the Southeastern Surgical Congress (2009-2010). He has authored more than 400 publications and is Editor of the book Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Targeted Therapy and Multidisciplinary Care.
 

Steven D. Leach, MD Professor of Molecular and Systems Biology Preston T. and Virginia R. Kelsey Distinguished Chair in Cancer Director, Norris Cotton Cancer Center Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine Dartmouth – Hitchcock Health System Hanover, New Hampshire

Steven D. Leach is Professor of Molecular and Systems Biology, the Preston T. and Virginia R. Kelsey Distinguished Chair in Cancer, and Director of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Dr. Leach received his bachelor’s degree with high honors in Biology from Princeton University.  He then completed medical school at Emory University, where he was a Robert Woodruff Fellow, followed by additional clinical and scientific training at Yale and M.D. Anderson.  Prior to moving to Dartmouth in 2017, Dr. Leach held faculty positions at Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins and Memorial Sloan Kettering. Dr. Leach’s lab has a long track record of groundbreaking discoveries, including the identification of several genes and pathways that are now being targeted in clinical trials for pancreatic cancer patients.  He has been the principal investigator for multiple NIH R01, P01 and T32 grants, and has received multiple awards honoring his work. In addition to his research activities, Dr. Leach has also served as Chair of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network's Scientific and Medical Advisory Board, as co-Editor-in-Chief of Current Opinion in Genetics and Development, and as a member of the Princeton University Board of Trustees.