ASCO is pleased to announce the top three recipients of the 2004 Foundation Merit Awards for fellows. Of the 100 Merit Awards granted this year to the first authors of abstracts selected for presentation at the Annual Meeting, three fellows have been chosen by the Scientific Program Committee to receive the top awards. The monetary award is designed to defray the cost of traveling to the Annual Meeting and to encourage further clinical cancer research.
Rashmi Chugh, MD, of the University of Michigan, received the Fellowship Merit Award for the overall highest ranking abstract; John J. Strouse, MD, of Johns Hopkins University and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), was awarded the Brigid Leventhal Merit Award for the highest ranking pediatric research abstract; and Douglas Brandoff, MD, of Brown University was granted the Pain Merit Award for the highest ranking abstract in patient care.
Dr. Chugh, along with fellow Merit Award winner Jason Salganick, are the first Merit Award recipients selected to present at an Integrated Education Session at the Annual Meeting. She will discuss her findings on a phase II trial of imatinib in sarcoma subtypes at the session “New Strategies to Assess the Activity of Agents for the Treatment of Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcomas” on Saturday, June 5 (7:45 AM–9:15 AM, Room 355, Elevators 3 and 4). Dr. Chugh is hopeful that the Merit Award will “help with the continued recognition of sarcoma research, and increase the prospect that rare cancers can serve as paradigms for cancer research in general.” She is working toward an academic career in sarcomas.
The abstract submitted by Dr. Strouse summarizes an analysis of pediatric and young adult cases of melanoma contained in the NCI Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Database, from which the team was able to extract data that substantially define risk factors and prognosis for pediatric melanoma for the first time. His findings will be on display at the General Poster Session, Melanoma, on Sunday, June 6 (8:00 AM–12:00 PM, Hall A).
Pain Merit Award winner Dr. Douglas Brandoff is “greatly encouraged that ASCO has recognized and embraced . . . palliative medicine and end-of-life care as fundamental to the practice of oncology.” He will present the findings of his study, comparing end-of-life care in nursing homes, acute care hospitals, and homes with hospice, at the Patient Care Poster Session on Tuesday, June 8 (8:00 AM–12:00 PM, Room R06, 2nd Floor, Escalators 1 and 2). Dr. Brandoff is also a cellist in the Brown Medical Chamber Orchestra.
Over the past 20 years, ASCO has provided millions of dollars to outstanding researchers through Clinical Research Career Development Awards (CDAs), Young Investigator Awards (YIAs), Merit Awards, and International Travel Grants. New in 2004 is the ASCO Foundation Advanced Clinical Research Award.
