This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center selects director for early detection, prevention initiative
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Pierre Massion , MD, professor of cancer research and co-leader of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center’s cancer health outcomes and control program, has been selected to direct the cancer center’s early detection and prevention initiative.
The program is designed to expand research into early detection and prevention, with the hope of establishing a freestanding, peer-reviewed cancer center research program in these areas. The initiative also will highlight opportunities to prevent cancers through smoking cessation.
“I am excited about the opportunity to lead this important new initiative, which has the potential to change the cancer narrative by focusing on preventing the disease or detecting cancer at earlier stages when it is more easily treated or curable,” Massion said in a press release.
Massion’s research has focused on lung cancer. Much of it has related to early detection, including the role of oncogenes in disease development and progression, as well as the identification of biomarkers for lung cancer detection and therapy response.
“The prevention of cancer and the development of more effective strategies to detect cancer precursors and early-stage cancers, when treatment may be most effective, remain top goals of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and we are pleased that Pierre has agreed to lead this new initiative,” Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD, executive vice president for research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and director of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, said in the release. “As we develop a better understanding of environment and lifestyle factors, and common genetic variants that are associated with higher or lower risk of certain cancers, we may be able to use that knowledge to identify individuals who may benefit from early detection and prevention strategies.”