Upper and lower GI cancer update from ASCO 2024

Dr Samuel J. Klempner is a GI medical oncologist with research and clinical focus on esophagogastric cancers and cancer genomics. Dr Klempner completed his residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, followed by a combined hematology-oncology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. While at Harvard, Dr Klempner studied the mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapies in tumor cells in the lab of Dr Lewis Cantley, PhD. Dr Klempner is board certified in medical oncology, hematology, and internal medicine. Prior to joining The Angeles Clinic and Research Institute Dr Klempner served as an Assistant Clinical Professor in the division of Hematology-Oncology at the University of California Irvine. Dr Klempner’s research interests include the intersection of genomics and immunotherapies, oncogene-driven tumors, acquired resistance, and experimental therapeutics. Dr Klempner is involved in professional societies including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO).

Elizabeth (Lizzy) Smyth is a consultant in gastrointestinal oncology. Dr Smyth commenced her oncology training in Dublin, Ireland. In 2009 she was awarded a fellowship from the Irish Society of Medical Oncology to train at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Centre, New York. Following this, she worked at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London from 2011-2018. Her research focus is on clinical trials and translational research in gastroesophageal cancer, and she has worked on trial design and management of national and international trials. She is a member of the European Society for Medical Oncology GI Faculty and leads the EORTC GI Trials Group Gastric Cancer Taskforce. Dr Smyth is committed to furthering national and international collaboration in GI trials research.

Dr Jenny Seligmann gained her MBChB and BMedSci at the University of Aberdeen in 2005 then gained her PhD in 2015 from the University of Leeds on Biomarkers of Prognosis and Prediction of Response in Colorectal Cancer. She was appointed a Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Fellow in 2015, then a University Academic Fellow and Consultant in Medical Oncology in Leeds in 2017. Her research interests are in clinical trials and biomarkers of prediction of response in colorectal cancer. She is involved in several ongoing clinical trials, including the FOCUS-4 trial and has an ongoing lab-based programme of research. She has been involved in several national and international committees, including the UK Colorectal Clinical Studies Group and is currently the EORTC GI Group Young Investigator. She has received several awards including an ASCO Merit Award in 2013.

Prof. Dr Dominik Modest studied medicine at the Charité in Berlin, Germany and at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Currently, after 10 years at the LMU in Munich, Germany, he is a physician at the Charité Universitaetsmedizin Berlin, Germany. His research activities focus on metastatic colorectal cancer and include the concept and coordination of trials for the FIRE study group and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Internistische Onkologie (AIO). Prof. Dr Modest also coordinates the translational research components of these trials, aiming to identify prognostic and predictive biomarkers of metastatic colorectal cancer. His research has been published in several papers in scientific journals. In 2015, he received a postdoctoral qualification on factors for personalisation of metastatic colorectal cancer therapy and a full professorship in 2020.  Prof. Dr Modest is an active member of several national and international cancer associations and served as spokesman for the Young Medical Oncologists of the AIO until 2014.