Stanford Report, July 11, 2007

Medical center people

Sarah Donaldson

Daniel Bernstein

John Cooke

Sarah Donaldson, MD, the Catharine and Howard Avery Professor, is the recipient of the 2007 Pediatric Oncology Award and Lecture presented by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Donaldson, who also serves as chief of pediatric radiation oncology at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, is known for her effort to cure childhood cancers, and is internationally renowned for research into the long-term effects of pediatric cancer treatment and the development of safer treatment regimens for children. In addition, her work has been instrumental in the development of innovative treatment approaches for Hodgkin's disease and rhabdomyosarcoma. The award was presented June 1 during ASCO's annual meeting in Chicago.

The Stanford Cardiovascular Institute has named three associate directors for the institute. Daniel Bernstein, MD, the Alfred Woodley Salter and Mabel G. Salter Professor of Pediatrics and co-chair of the Children's Heart Center at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, will serve as associate director for pediatric clinical care, and Geoffrey Rubin, MD, professor of radiology, will serve as associate director for adult clinical care. John Cooke, MD, PhD, professor of medicine (cardiovascular), will serve as associate director for education and training. The institute's mission is to develop and pioneer integrative strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat and ultimately eliminate cardiovascular diseases.

Postdoctoral fellows Cara Pager, PhD, and Yu Wong, MD, PhD, were awarded three-year Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation fellowships. Pager's sponsor is Peter Sarnow, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, and she will be studying the role of newly discovered small RNAs in the regulation of the hepatitis C virus. Wong's sponsor is Mark Davis, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, and he will be developing a novel method to monitor the immune system in breast cancer patients with the goal of designing a targeted immunotherapy.

The awards provide financial support to outstanding young scientists who are conducting theoretical and experimental research relevant to the study of cancer and the search for its causes, mechanisms, therapies and prevention.