Dr. Oliver received her PhD from Duke University in 2005 in Pharmacology and Cancer Biology as a graduate student in Dr. Rob Wechsler-Reya's lab. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship (2006-2011) in Dr. Tyler Jack's lab at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston, MA. Dr. Oliver joined the University of Utah and Huntsman Cancer Institute in 2011. She is now Associate Professor with tenure and a Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) Endowed Chair in Cancer Research in the Department of Oncological Sciences. Dr. Oliver is a co-leader of the Cell Response and Regulation (CRR) and co-leader of the Lung Cancer Disease Center at HCI. Dr. Oliver has received many awards including a National Science Foundation (NSF) graduate student fellowship, and two postdoctoral fellowships from ASPET-Merck and the Ludwig Foundation at MIT. As an independent investigator, she has received awards from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the V Foundation for Cancer Research, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, and was honored with a William C. Rippe Award for Distinguished Research in Lung Cancer from the Lung Cancer Research Foundation (LCRF). Research: Dr. Oliver's research is devoted to understanding mechanisms of lung cancer biology with the goal of identifying novel therapeutic targets to improve patient outcome. As a graduate student at Duke, she studied the developmental origins of the childhood brain tumor, medulloblastoma, where she identified mechanisms of tumor progression in mouse models of the disease. As a postdoctoral fellow at MIT and as an independent investigator, she has developed novel mouse models of squamous and small cell lung cancer. Her work has contributed to our understanding of the Mdm2/p53 pathway, chemotherapy resistance mechanisms, and the functions of oncogenic transcription factors like Sox2, Nkx2-1, and Myc. Dr. Oliver’s laboratory integrates mouse genetics, molecular and cellular biology, biochemistry, single cell genomics, in vivo imaging, and preclinical therapeutics. Teaching and Mentoring: Dr. Oliver has been active in graduate student and medical school teaching. Dr. Oliver's trainees have received a number of prestigious awards. These include the Susan Cooper Jones Postdoc of the Year Award, the James W. Prahl Memorial Graduate Student of the Year award, an NIH NCI F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award. In addition, Oliver lab trainees have won a number of travel awards including to Keystone Symposia and selection as a recipient to the 68th Annual Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting in Germany.

Dr. Catherine Meador is a senior clinical fellow in the Dana-Farber/Mass General Brigham medical oncology fellowship program. Her primary research interests focus on the biology of initiation and progression of small cell lung cancer, as well as mechanisms of histologic transformation in lung cancer and the pathologic and clinical characteristics of mixed histology lung tumors.

Dr. MacPherson is a Professor in the Division of Human Biology at Fred Hutch. His lab is focused on understanding the molecular underpinnings of small cell lung cancer (SCLC). The lab studies SCLC patient samples and employs genetically engineered mouse (GEM) models as well as patient-derived xenograft models to interrogate genes that drive SCLC initiation, progression and response to therapy. Building upon the Rb/p53-deleted mouse model developed by Berns’ group, his lab has generated GEM models with deletions in SCLC tumor suppressors such as Pten, Crebbp and Max and with overexpression of oncogenes such as MYCN. His lab employs GEM and PDX models in therapeutic studies to understand and improve responses to novel and to standard therapies for SCLC.

Christine M. Lovly, MD, PhD is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine with tenure at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. She received a B.A. in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University followed by M.D. and Ph.D. degrees as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She then completed internal medicine residency and medical oncology subspecialty training at Vanderbilt University. During her final year of fellowship, she was the Jim and Carol O'Hare Chief Fellow. She started on faculty at Vanderbilt in July 2013 as a Physician Scientist, splitting her time between clinical care and laboratory research. Her laboratory research is directed at understanding and developing improved therapeutic strategies for specific clinically relevant molecular subsets of cancer. Dr. Lovly has received grant funding from NIH/NCI, Uniting Against Lung Cancer, the Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Sarcoma Foundation of America, the American Cancer Society, the Damon Runyon foundation, the LUNGevity foundation, the V Foundation, the American Association for Cancer Research, and Lung Cancer Foundation of America / International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. She is an active member in the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). She is co-Editor-In-Chief for the website www.mycancergenome.org, a Vanderbilt initiated, freely available website which aims to provide health care practitioners, patient, and advocates with up-to-date information regarding genetically informed cancer medicine. Dr. Lovly is also an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and serves on the Editorial Board for Cancer Discovery. She serves on the Scientific Leadership Boards for the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer Research (where she also serves as SLB director), the LUNGevity Foundation, and the Lung Cancer Research Foundation. In 2021, she was awarded the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group Young Investigator Award.

Dr. Benjamin Lok is a Clinician-Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Radiation Oncology, Medical Biophysics, and the Institute of Medical Science, at the University of Toronto. He received his MD from New York University School of Medicine in 2012 followed by clinical residency with laboratory research training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Since joining Princess Margaret in 2017, Dr. Lok has served as Staff Radiation Oncologist within the Lung Site Group. He leads a CIHR and NIH funded laboratory program with a mission to improve outcomes for lung cancer patients by understanding mechanisms of resistance and developing novel therapeutic strategies, particularly those related to DNA repair.

Dr. Jonathan Lehman is a practicing medical thoracic oncologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Department of Veterans Affairs in Nashville, TN. Dr. Lehman’s current research focuses on small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC), the most aggressive subtype of lung cancer, and is driven by his clinical experience with his patients and Veterans who are disproportionately afflicted by the disease. SCLC is particularly devastating because most tumors develop metastatic recurrence despite initial response to therapeutic intervention. Dr. Lehman’s research focuses on rare chemotherapy resistant subpopulations and he has described distinct neuroendocrine survival signaling in SCLC and rare chemotherapy stable subpopulations uncovered by a novel single cell mass cytometry panel that can identify the expression of more than 40 individual proteins to cluster subpopulations of cells within a large number of tumor cells. He is delighted to participate in the Vanderbilt University U54 group focused on characterizing and modeling different subpopulations in Small Cell Lung Cancer. He is grateful to the NCI, VA, and Department of Defense for continued funding support and his collaborators in the Rudin, ECOG and U54 labs. He is grateful for the support of his former research mentor Dr. Pierre Massion, who is dearly missed.

Ticiana A. Leal, MD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology, Medical Oncology and Palliative Care at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Dr. Leal earned her medical degree from the Federal University of Ceara, Brazil, and completed her residency at University of Chicago Hospitals. She completed her fellowship at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics and the University of Illinois. Dr. Leal is board certified in medical oncology and palliative care medicine. She is a medical oncologist specializing in thoracic malignancies. She is a member of the NCCN NSCLC and mesothelioma/thymic malignancies panels. Her academic appointments include Thoracic Oncology Program Director, and Co-Chair of the Big Ten CRC Thoracic Clinical Trial Working Group. She is a member of the ECOG/ACRIN Thoracic Committee, NRG Oncology Medical Oncology Committee, and member of the IASLC LATAM Latin American Working Group, among many others. She has authored or coauthored numerous peer-reviewed original research articles, book chapters, and posters.

Prasad Kopparapu Bio: Dr. Prasad Kopparapu is a research fellow in Dr. Christine Lovly’s lab at vanderbilt university medical center, studying circulating tumor cells in small cell lung cancer patients. Dr. Kopparapu got his PhD in Toxicology from Oregon state university where he worked on small molecule functional converters of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 protein. Before coming to USA for his graduate studies Dr. Kopparapu worked in India as a clinical programmer. Dr. Kopparapu did his bachelor’s in chemical engineering from Osmania university and a master’s in biotechnology from JNT University in his hometown Hyderabad in India. In his free time Dr. Kopparapu likes spending time in nature and is also a yoga practitioner.

Dr. Jane E. Johnson is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center where she holds the Shirley and William S. McIntyre Distinguished Chair in Neuroscience. She trained at the University of Washington in Seattle and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in molecular and developmental biology. Her contributions to science are in the transcriptional control of neural development and cancer, with recent work on lineage transcription factors defining subtypes of neuroendocrine lung cancer. She is a 2017 MERIT award recipient for her research on the transcriptional control of spinal cord development.

Abbie Ireland is a PhD student in Dr. Trudy Oliver’s lab at Huntsman Cancer Institute at University of Utah. She studies modes of transcriptional and metabolic plasticity in SCLC and is currently funded by an NIH T32 Developmental Biology training grant.