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ASTRO names 2015 honorary member
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The American Society for Radiation Oncology selected surgeon and researcher Jack A. Roth, MD, as the 2015 honorary member.
This is the highest honor ASTRO bestows on distinguished cancer researchers, scientists and leaders in disciplines other than radiation oncology, radiobiology or radiation physics.
“Throughout his renowned career, Dr. Roth has demonstrated leadership and commitment to multidisciplinary approaches for treating lung cancer,” Bruce G. Haffty, MD, FASTRO, chair of ASTRO’s board of directors, said in a press release. “Patients should benefit from his pivotal work comparing the use of stereotactic ablative radiation therapy versus surgery for operable clinical stage I non–small cell lung cancer. He and colleagues found that [stereotactic ablative radiation therapy] may improve outcomes for stage I NSCLC patients compared to standard lobectomy in their study. Dr. Roth is an excellent surgeon and clinician, as well as an inspiring mentor. ASTRO thanks him for his outstanding achievements.”
Roth is professor in the department of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery in the division of surgery at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as well as chief of the section of thoracic molecular oncology within the department of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery at MD Anderson.
“It is always a great feeling to be recognized by your peers,” Roth said in the release. “My first thought was that this is a tribute to all the outstanding colleagues that I have been privileged to work with over the years.”
In addition to studying stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, he was an early innovator in the development of gene therapy for cancer. He led the first tumor suppressor gene therapy clinical trials approved by the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee and the FDA.
“Cancer is a disease of dysfunctional genes,” Roth said in the press release. “A direct way to address this is to correct the genetic abnormalities through gene transfer. The first tumor suppressor gene therapy patient was treated by our group in 1995. This has been a long journey as well, with many technical challenges. However, during the past 5 years, real progress has been made in systemic gene delivery.”