Manuel Hidalgo, M.D., Ph.D. (Chairperson)
Manuel Hidalgo, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Oncology, Director of the Drug Development Program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Chairman of the Pancreatic Cancer Research Team of Translational Genomics in Scottsdale, Arizona. He received his medical degree from the University Navarra Medical School in Pamplona, Spain, and his doctorate degree from the University of Autonoma in Madrid, Spain.

Dr. Hidalgo's clinical and laboratory research focus is on the discovery and development of novel therapies for patients with pancreatic cancer including preclinical and clinical development. In 1997, he began his career as a clinical research fellow at the Cancer Therapy and Research Center in San Antonio, Texas, where he participated in the EORTC/NCI Exchange Fellowship and AACR Young Investigator Fellowship in Clinical Research. He worked as both an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center and as a clinical investigator at the Cancer Therapy and Research Center for two years prior to his current position. He obtained the ASCO Career Development Award in 2001.

Timothy David Sielaff, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S.
Dr. Sielaff is the Eugene W. and Elizabeth B. Leonard Trusts Chair in Oncology Medical Director at the Virginia Piper Cancer Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He trained in Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery and Liver Transplantation at the University of Toronto and was most recently an Asssociate Professor of Surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School. His clinical research interests in pancreas cancer center on minimally invasive staging (endoscopic ultrasound and laparoscopy) and neoadjuvant therapy for locally advanced tumors. He is co-investigator on a cis-platin based multiagent chemoradiotherapy protocol through the Virginia Piper Cancer Institute and the University of Minnesota.

Mitesh Borad, M.D.
Dr. Borad, MD, is a graduate of New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey. He did his residency in Internal Medicine at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Medical Oncology Fellowship at Tulane University School of Medicine. Thereafter, he was a Genomics Medicine/ Drug Development Scholar at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix, Arizona.

Dr. Borad is currently Associate Director of Phase I Drug Development at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. He is actively involved in all aspects of Phase I and Phase II clinical trials for investigational oncology drugs.

Dr. Borad's research interests include: Phase I drug development, Pancreatic cancer, Biliary cancer (Cholangiocarcinoma), Liver cancer (Hepatocellular carcinoma), Genomic/novel clinical trial designs and Rare cancers: Adrenocortical cancer, Metastatic basal cell cancer, Pheochromocytoma, Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST).

Howard "Skip" Burris III, M.D.
Dr. Burris is Director of Drug Development at The Sarah Cannon Cancer Center in Nashville, TN, and is also an Associate with Tennessee Oncology, PLLC. He is the former Director of Clinical Research at the Institute for Drug Development at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio and Associate Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center. His research interests focus on developing investigational agents and Phase I and II testing of new compounds such as taxanes and topoisomerase I inhibitors.

David Z. Chang, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Chang graduated from Taishan Medical College in China in 1989. He then pursued additional education at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire from 1990 to 1998, and obtained his M.D./Ph.D. degrees with Ph.D. thesis on functional and structural analysis of interleukin-2. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and subsequently, pursued his fellowship in Hematology/Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center from 2001 to 2004, during which time he worked under the mentorship of Dr. Leonard Saltz, an outstanding clinical investigator in gastrointestinal medical oncology, and Dr. Alan Houghton, a world-renowned tumor immunologist. He then joined faculty at Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Chang is board certified in Internal Medicine, and in Medical Oncology.

Dr. Chang specializes in colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and neuroendocrine tumor. His research interest is developing active immunotherapy for gastrointestinal cancers. He has received numerous prestigious awards including ASCO Young Investigator Award, AACR Clinical Research Award, and CALGB Research Fellowship during his fellowship, and ASCO Career Development Award and AACR Career Development Award as a faculty. He has authored or co-authored over a dozen peer-reviewed papers and three book or book chapters.

As one of the founding members of the Chinese American Hematologist and Oncologist Network (CAHON), Dr. Chang has been actively participated in promoting this organization in the United States as well as in China.

Vincent Chung, M.D.
Vincent Chung, MD received his medical degree from the University of Tennessee at Memphis. He then went to California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco for Internal Medicine residency and also served as chief resident. He completed his hematology and oncology training at Harbor UCLA and City of Hope. Currently he is an assistant professor in the Division of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics Research at the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, California. His research interests include novel therapeutics for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. One of the pathways that appear to be associated with aggressive tumor growth is mediated by c-Src that signals through the signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 (STAT3) molecule. He has been working with small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors that target the Src family of kinases. Also, he has been studying the effects of epigenetic drugs in pancreatic cancer.