| COURSE 2  |
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| 23-24 April 2010 | Melanoma and Sarcoma |
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Professor Julia Newton Bishop
Julia Newton Bishop is Professor of Dermatology at the University of Leeds. She runs the Pigmented Lesion Clinic and the dermatology component of the Melanoma Specialist MDT.
Her research group works on the genetic and environmental determinants of susceptibility to and survival from melanoma.
Professor Charles Balch, M.D.
Professor of Surgery, Oncology and Dermatology
Deputy Director for Clinical Trials and Outcomes Research
Institute for Clinical and Translational Research
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
Baltimore, Maryland
Dr. Charles M. Balch has led a distinguished career as a clinical and academic surgical oncologist for the past 32 years, as a leading authority in both melanoma and breast cancer. He has also made significant contributions to laboratory research in tumor immunology and human T lymphocyte differentiation.
Dr Balch is generally regarded as one of the leading melanoma experts in the world. He is the editor of Cutaneous Melanoma, regarded as the authoritative textbook on melanoma, now in preparation for the 5th edition. He is author of over 617 publications, which includes over 110 published articles on melanoma, 7 books on melanoma and 124 book chapters or invited educational articles regarding his clinical investigations involving the natural history of melanoma, prognostic factors predicting clinical outcome, and standards of surgical treatment. He has published extensively on the conduct and methodology of clinical research. Dr Balch, Dr Seng-jaw Soong and colleagues performed one of the first prognostic factors analysis for melanoma in a landmark paper which was the first to use the Cox multifactorial regression analysis. They were the first to identify the major prognostic factors for Stage I, II and III melanoma that were the independent predictor of survival. Their research on the natural history and predictive factors of melanoma clinical outcome essentially redefined the criteria now used worldwide for stratification criteria and end results reporting of clinical trials as well as TNM staging for melanoma.
As Chair of the Melanoma Staging Committee of the AJCC since 1997, Dr Balch and other melanoma experts have organized the largest prognostics factors analysis ever conducted involving 50,000 melanoma patients treated by specialists from 3 continents and all the major cancer cooperative groups. There analyses completely revised the staging system for melanoma that was published in the 6th Edition of the AJCC Staging Manual in 2003 and are being updated for 2009.
He had held major leadership roles involving clinical research in three comprehensive cancer centers (UAB, MD Anderson and City of Hope) prior to coming to Johns Hopkins. He has also held leadership roles involving clinical research in cancer cooperative groups, NIH study sections, and in professional organizations. He has been a Principle Investigator or Co-PI of numerous clinical trials, including 10 phase III trials, most of which were NCI-funded national Phase III trials. Dr Balch has organized or participated in randomized surgical trials that have defined the current standards of melanoma surgery, either through the World Health Organization Melanoma Program or as Principle Investigator of the Intergroup Melanoma Surgical Trial. Their results established the safety of using more conservative surgical excision of a primary melanoma. He has also led 5 multi-institutional randomized clinical trials involving various combinations of adjuvant biological therapy or chemotherapy in high-risk melanoma patients.
In past years, Dr. Balch has served as Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (2000-2005), and as President and CEO of the City of Hope National Medical Center (1996-1999). At the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, from 1985-1996, Dr. Balch served as Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, Vice President of Hospital and Clinics, and Head of the Division of Surgery, among other positions. Dr. Balch’s leadership roles have involved the Society of Surgical Oncology (as President in 1992), where he currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for the society’s peer-reviewed journal, the Annals of Surgical Oncology, the American Board of Surgery (Board of Directors), the Association of Academic Surgeons (President) and the Commission on Cancer (Chair, Board of Directors) and the American Joint Committee on Cancer (Executive Committee). He also serves as Chair of the Melanoma Quality Assurance Task Force for the National Cancer Database under the auspices of the American College of Surgeons.