New Ingram Professors named at VICC
Six members of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center have been awarded “Ingram Cancer Research Professorships,” a tool created in 1999 to help VICC attract and retain the brightest basic scientists and clinical investigators.
These professorships are awarded for a period of five years and are renewable based on outstanding performance by the investigator. “The income from the endowments provides discretionary funding for the investigator’s laboratory to allow innovative, cutting-edge research that cannot be easily funded through traditional grants,” said Dr. Harold L. Moses, Benjamin F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Oncology and VICC director.
New Ingram Professors of Cancer Research are Jennifer A. Pietenpol, Ph.D., associate director of Research Programs at VICC and associate professor of Biochemistry; Dr. Hak Choy, professor of Radiation Oncology; and Dr. Wei Zheng, director of Molecular Epidemiology at VICC and professor of Medicine (General Internal Medicine).
New Ingram Associate Professors of Cancer Research are H. Alex Brown, Ph.D., associate professor of Pharmacology, and Dr. John F. Kuttesch, associate professor of Pediatrics (Pediatric Hematology/Oncology).
David Cortez, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biochemistry, has been named Ingram Assistant Professor of Cancer Research.
These professorships, now held by a total of 17 VICC members, are made possible by the ongoing campaign to “Imagine a World Without Cancer” and specifically by the Ingram Charitable Fund.
Giving VICC the ability to attract top investigators to its team is a cornerstone of the campaign. The Cancer Center recently announced that the campaign’s second goal of $150 million had been exceeded and that the campaign is now targeting $175 million for the fight against cancer.