Newswise — Sandra Horning, MD, Chief Medical Officer and executive vice president of global development for Roche and Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, has been named the 2017 recipient of the Duane Roth Memorial Award, which will be presented February 16 at the annual Industry/Academia Translational Oncology Symposium at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.
The award celebrates Duane Roth, who was Chief Executive Officer of Connect, a San Diego-based organization that promotes technology innovation and entrepreneurship. Roth died in 2013 from injuries suffered in a bicycling accident.
Horning has had a long and distinguished career in cancer treatment and research, first as a practicing oncologist, investigator and professor at Stanford University for 25 years, then at the San Francisco-based biotech company Genentech, which merged with the Swiss firm Roche in 2009.
Horning, a cancer survivor, has focused much of her work on developing new treatments for lymphoma, a cancer that affects the immune system, including leading clinical trials that eventually resulted in new, approved drug treatments. She was president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2005-2006.
“Throughout her impressive career, Sandra Horning has been an unwavering champion of personalized therapies and shifting the focus from treatment of cancer to a more holistic approach of treating the patient as an individual, mindful of his or her family and anticipating survivorship issues, such as fertility, secondary malignancies, cardiopulmonary and endocrine side-effects and more,” said Ida Deichaite, PhD, director of UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center’s Office of Industry Relations and an organizer of the symposium.
“Her scientific achievements in oncology have been amazing and continue to give life, but it’s her passion and commitment to promoting empathetic treatment plans that exemplify how establishing collaborations across disciplines can truly improve cancer treatment.”
The Roth award is bestowed upon leaders in health care whose work has overcome numerous scientific, financial, institutional, political and cultural obstacles to create new paradigms in research and treatment, said Deichaite. Past recipients include: Dennis Slamon, MD, PhD, UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center; Brian Druker, MD, Knight Institute at Oregon Health and Science University; and Laura Esserman, MD, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The symposium, now in its 13th year, is a day-long event at Moores Cancer Center, bringing together scientists, physicians and biopharma representatives to discuss innovations and new collaborations in cancer research and treatment.
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