Elaine Mardis Chosen as 2018-2019 AACR President-Elect

Elaine R. Mardis, PhD

Elaine R. Mardis, PhD

Elaine R. Mardis, PhD, has been selected as president-elect of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) for 2018-2019. Mardis’ position will become official at the AACR Annual Meeting 2018, to be held in Chicago, Illinois, from April 14-18, and she will assume her presidency in April 2019.

During her time as President-Elect, Mardis plans to collaborate with the board of directors and AACR members to continue building on the AACR’s mission of preventing and curing all cancers through research, education, communication, and collaboration.

“I am humbled and excited by the AACR election result and I look forward to the opportunity to serve as the president of an organization whose vision and goals I have championed for many years,” Mardis said in a statement.

As a member of the AACR since 2009, Mardis currently serves as program committee chair for the AACR Annual Meeting and a member of the board of directors. She has previously served as a member of numerous AACR committees including the Pezcoller Foundation-AACR Award, AACR Project GENIE Advisory Board, and AACR Special Conferences. She has also been a member of the Steering Committee for the 2013-2014 AACR Cancer Progress Report and a member of the Annual Meeting Program Committee from 2011-2013.

Her achievements with the AACR continue as she served as co-chair of the AACR Precision Medicine Series: Integrating Clinical Genomic and Cancer Therapy conference and has served on several other committees organizing conferences. She is also a senior editor of the AACR journal,Molecular Cancer Research.

Mardis is co-executive director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and holds the Nationwide Foundation Endowed Chair in Genomic Medicine. She also teaches as a professor of pediatrics at the Ohio State University College of Medicine.

Her world-renowned research on both genomic characterization of cancer and its implications for cancer medicine has led to her delivery of several keynote addresses and other lectures at international conferences. Her topics have covered cancer genomics, next-generation sequencing technology, personalized medicine, and cancer immunogenics.

“Elaine Mardis has been an incredibly dynamic leader in the quest to improve our understanding of cancer by analyzing the human genome,” Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), chief executive officer of the AACR said. “Her pioneering work in DNA sequencing has led to dramatic advances in our knowledge of how genetic mutations can cause cancer to develop and progress. This, in turn, has brought us closer to the goal of personalized medicine, which has helped reduce mortality from the scourge of cancer.”

The AACR looks forward to the incredible leadership skills Mardis will bring to the table. She has won numerous awards during her career, including Distinguished Alumna of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma, where she obtained her bachelor’s degree. Other awards and honors Mardis has received include the George Engelmann Interdisciplinary Award from St. Louis Academy of Science, the American Association for Clinical Chemistry Morton K. Schwartz Award for Significant Contributions in Cancer Research Diagnostics, and the Precision Medicine World Congress 2017 Luminary Award.