The National Melanoma Tissue Repository Team

The repository will be administered for public and private research by the following leaders in melanoma research with AIM at Melanoma and Skin of Steel support:

  John M. Kirkwood, MD,is a board-certified medical oncologist and Director of the Melanoma Center at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute since 1985.  Dr. Kirkwood’s has pioneered the application of antibodies, cytokines, interferons, vaccines and adoptive cellular immunotherapy for melanoma, and developed the first FDA-approved adjuvant therapy effective for melanoma in 1996 (high-dose interferon).  Dr. Kirkwood has been the Chairman of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group’s Melanoma Committee for the last 22 years, and in that capacity has led multiple ECOG and US intergroup trials of new therapies for melanoma, as well as an increasing number of international studies that are now ongoing.  He has published 295 peer-reviewed articles and more than 160 reviews, chapters, and monographs.  He has received numerous awards including the Milstein Prize of the International Society of Interferon and Cytokine Research and the Grand Prize of the European Society of Cytokine Research.  He is on the Editorial Boards of multiple journals including the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Research and Clinical Cancer Research.

  COL Aizenhawar J. Marrogi, MD,is Chief of the Chemical Biological Program, a Division of Experimental Therapeutics at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR).  He is board-certified as an Anatomic and Clinical Pathologist and a Dermatopathologist.  COL Marrogi is Chief of the WRAIR’s Internal Review Board.    Given the number of troops engaged in intense sun-exposed areas like the Middle East, COL Marrogi is actively engaged in presenting the need for a national melanoma tissue repository with extensive military personnel participation to legislators on the Hill as well as the Department of Defense.

  Sancy Leachman, MD, PhD,is Director of the Melanoma and Cutaneous Oncology Program at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, an associate professor in the Department of Dermatology at the University of Utah School of Medicine, and member of the Imaging, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics Program and the Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program. Dr. Leachman examines the role of genetic predisposition and differential gene expression in the development of melanoma, with an emphasis on the familial melanoma syndrome. Through her investigations, she hopes to develop agents that serve as diagnostic tools, prognostic indicators, or targeted agents for the prevention of melanoma. Her clinical interests include skin cancers, especially melanoma, pigmentary disorders that result from abnormalities of melanocytes such as vitiligo, and genetic disorders that involve the skin such as pachyonychia congenita, Cowden syndrome, and other cutaneous cancer syndromes.  Dr. Leachman was awarded the prestigious Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award in 2000.

  Mohammed Kashani-Sabet, MD, is Medical Director of the Center for Melanoma Research and Treatment at the California Pacific Medical Center, an affiliate of the Sutter Health network.  A board-certified Dermatologist, he is also Senior Scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute. Dr. Kashani-Sabet’s research focuses on the identification of melanoma progression genes, novel diagnostic and prognostic markers for melanoma, and the development of targeted therapies for metastatic melanoma, areas in which he is internationally recognized and in which he has published extensively. His laboratory has identified a number of novel melanoma progression genes, and has developed multi-marker diagnostic and prognostic assays for melanoma. Dr. Kashani-Sabet is a member of numerous professional societies and serves on the editorial boards of Cancer Gene Therapy, Journal of Skin Cancer, Oncology Letters, and Journal of Translational Medicine.

A Chicago Institutional Member is in the process of being determined.