image: Dr. Primo N. Lara, Jr., and Dr. Dawn L. Hershman are the new group co-chairs-elect of the SWOG Cancer Research Network. view more
Credit: Courtesy UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center & Columbia University/Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center
The board of governors of the SWOG Cancer Research Network has elected Primo N. Lara, Jr., MD, and Dawn L. Hershman, MD, MS, as group co-chairs-elect. The two will serve in that capacity until the term of the current group chair, Charles D. Blanke, MD, ends in spring 2025. They will then begin a six-year term as SWOG’s first group co-chairs.
In a joint statement, Hershman and Lara said, “We both understand that the success of SWOG has been fundamentally anchored in collaborative interdisciplinary team science. We are convinced that a multi-PI approach at the group chair level truly represents SWOG’s highly successful team-based nature.”
“We believe that the breadth and depth of our experiences and skillsets in clinical and translational cancer research within SWOG and across the NCTN and NCORP are so highly complementary and synergistic that we expect nothing more than even greater impact of SWOG’s activities into the foreseeable future.”
Hershman is an American Cancer Society Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and interim chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She is also deputy director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. Within SWOG, she serves as SWOG’s vice chair for NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) research.
Lara is professor of medicine and executive associate dean for cancer programs at the University of California Davis School of Medicine. He is also director of the NCI-designated UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, and within SWOG he serves as the group’s deputy chair and vice chair of operations.
SWOG Cancer Research Network is part of the National Cancer Institute's National Clinical Trials Network and the NCI Community Oncology Research Program and is part of the oldest and largest publicly funded cancer research network in the nation. SWOG has more than 18,000 members in 45 states and nine foreign countries who design and conduct clinical trials to improve the lives of people with cancer. SWOG trials have led to the approval of 14 cancer