New chair to head national cancer research action group

Kingston, ON – Queen’s University cancer researcher, Dr Elizabeth Eisenhauer, is the new chair of the Research Action Group of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, and co-chair of the Canadian Cancer Research Alliance.

Dr Eisenhauer, who has been president of the National Cancer Institute of Canada since 2006, will guide the development of a national cancer research strategy and provide guidance for the Research Action Group’s key projects. These include the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project – the largest cohort study of its kind in Canada – and a biomarker translational research initiative in partnership with the Terry Fox Research Institute.

“I am excited to be taking on this new role, which will focus on helping to coordinate and provide oversight to all the major research investments of the partnership,” says Dr Eisenhauer, a professor in Queen’s department of oncology. “The other major focus of the position will be to work as co-chair of the Canadian Cancer Research Alliance an organization which includes Canada’s major national and provincial cancer research funders to develop a pan-Canadian cancer research strategy for the next five to 10 years.”

She will continue her work in the clinical study of promising new cancer drugs in the Queen’s-based NCIC Clinical Trials Group, which is funded by the Canadian Cancer Society. As director of the NCIC’s Investigational New Drug Program, her major responsibilities lie in identifying and bringing into clinical trial novel cancer agents. Since 1982 she has been responsible for coordinating more than 170 trials across Canada, the US and Europe. She has also served on the committees of many national and international bodies, including the Canadian Cancer Society, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the US National Cancer Institute.