Vanderbilt University cancer researcher Ann Richmond, Ph.D., 2016 recipient of one of the highest honors for scientific achievement bestowed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, will be a keynote speaker during a national VA research conference next week at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
“Cancer Immunotherapy: Advances and Challenges” is the topic of the Third National Veterans Health Affairs Research Conference, which will be held May 17-18 in room 208 Light Hall. Visit https://redcap.vanderbilt.edu/surveys/?s=PJCJPYRPYF to register free of charge.
Richmond is the Ingram Professor of Cancer Research at Vanderbilt and Senior Research Career Scientist with the VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, Nashville campus. She will speak at 3:15 p.m. May 17 on “Chemokines: Modulators of Leukocyte Trafficking and Mediators of Response to Immune Therapy.”
She will be introduced by Donald Rubin, M.D., who is Chief of the Research and Development Service at the Nashville VA, and Vanderbilt professor of Medicine and of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology.
Rubin nominated Richmond for William S. Middleton Award, which was given by the VA’s Biomedical Laboratory Research and Development Service for her research that has advanced the development of immunotherapies against melanoma, a potentially lethal skin cancer that disproportionally affects Gulf War veterans.
Other keynote speakers will be Thomas Gajewski, M.D., Ph.D., University of Chicago; Willy Hugo, M.D., Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, UCLA; and James Yang, M.D., National Cancer Institute.
Other Vanderbilt/Nashville VA speakers include Tim Blackwell, Ph.D., Mark Boothby, M.D., Ph.D., Jin Chen, Ph.D., Volker Haase, M.D., Jacek Hawiger, M.D., Ph.D., Jonathan Irish, Ph.D., Doug Johnson, M.D., Young-Jun Kim, M.D., Ph.D., Pierre Massion, M.D., Javid Moslehi, M.D., Jeff Rathmell, Ph.D., John Wilson, Ph.D., and Sandra Zinkel, M.D., Ph.D.
The symposium is hosted by the Nashville VA and sponsored by the VA Office of Research and Development. Co-sponsors included the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Department of Medicine.
For more information contact Sheila Horgan at the Nashville VA at Sheila.Horgan@va.gov or Kerry Vazquez in the Department of Cancer Biology at Kerry.w.vazquez@vanderbilt.edu.