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2011 Statesman Award honors extraordinary voluntary efforts

Chapel Hill, NC – Richard M. Goldberg, MD, Distinguished Professor and Chief of the UNC Division of Hematology/Oncology and Physician-in-Chief of the N.C. Cancer Hospital and Joel E. Tepper, MD, the Hector MacLean Distinguished Professor of Cancer Research in the Department of Radiation Oncology will be two of 20 recipients of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2011 Statesman Award.

The award, presented today at ASCO’s national meeting in Chicago, IL, recognizes the extraordinary dedication of ASCO members for their voluntary efforts that benefit the Society, the specialty of oncology, and the patients served by the profession and the society. Each year the award is given to volunteers who have given 20 or more cumulative years of service to the Society.

In addition to his other roles, Goldberg is also Associate Director for Clinical Research at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He earned his MD at the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, New York. Following his training in internal medicine, he spent two years as a Fellow in Medical Oncology at the Vincent T. Lombardi Cancer Research Center at Georgetown University. Prior to joining UNC in 2003 he was an Associate in Medical Oncology at the Geisinger Medical Center and Clinic in Danville, Pennsylvania, and was appointed Vice Chairman of the Department of Medicine there in 1992. From 1994–2003, he was Associate Professor, then Professor of Oncology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and chaired the Mayo Gastrointestinal Cancer Research Program. In 2004 he was appointed the chair of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Committee for the Cancer and Acute Leukemia B Group (CALGB), where he now serves as Associate Group Chair for Intergroup Affairs.

In addition to ASCO, Dr. Goldberg is a member of American Association for Cancer Research (AACR),), and the American Joint Commission on Cancer (AJCC) colorectal task force. He has been an invited reviewer for many leading medical and oncology journals, and on the editorial boards of the NCI’s Physician Data Query program, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Colorectal Cancer, and Oncology. Dr. Goldberg’s principal research interests include the evaluation of new agents for the treatment of colorectal cancer, inherited colorectal cancer syndromes, clinical trials methodology, and the role of meta-analysis in the decision making process for evidence based medicine. He has coauthored more than 200 publications.

Dr. Tepper is also a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is board-certified in radiation therapy by the American Board of Radiology. Dr. Tepper earned his MD from Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. He completed his residency in radiation oncology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He has served as a Senior Investigator at the National Cancer Institute and has been a faculty member at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School before coming to UNC in 1987. He was Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at UNC for almost 20 years. Dr. Tepper has published numerous articles and abstracts in the area of combined modality therapy in gastrointestinal cancers and has served as principal investigator for UNC’s GI SPORE grant. He is at present co-PI for The UNC CCNE grant (Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence).

His research efforts focus on evaluating the mechanism of interactions between radiation and chemotherapeutic agents and evaluating these interactions through clinical trials. He is past-president and past-chairman of the board of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology and is a recipient of an ASTRO Gold Medal. In addition, he is co-Chair of the NCI GI Steering Committee, has served on the steering committee of ASCO/ASTRO/AGA/SSO GI Oncology Conference and until recently was on the board of directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He is a member of CTAC-the Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Committee which is advisory to the NCI Director.