In this episode of The Onco’Zine Brief Peter Hofland and Sonia Portillo talk with Michael A. Caligiuri, MD, the current (2017- 2018) president of the American Association for Cancer Research | AACR.

Caligiuri is director of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and CEO of the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, located in Columbus, Ohio. He is a renowned physician-scientist, known for his work in immunology that is focused on human natural killer cells and their modulation for the treatment of leukemia, myeloma, and glioblastoma. Well over 1,500 cancer patients have been treated on clinical protocols that have come out of Caligiuri’s laboratory.

Caligiuri has been actively involved with the AACR since 1990, serving as a member, and more recently, chairperson of the Publications Committee and a member of the Clinical and Translational Cancer Research Committee, among other things.

During the 2017 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research | AACR, Hofland and Portillo sat down with Caligiuri to ask him about his passion, his drive and what he wants to accomplish during his tenure as president of the organization.

One of Caligiuri main concerns is the health disparities in cancer that represent a major public health problem in our country. By promoting the exchange of novel ideas and information between the AACR and a wide range of professionals from academia, industry, government, and the community, Caligiuri hopes to drive a movement to help eliminate the disparities and harness the potential and maximize the many opportunities for bringing research on health disparities from bench to bedside or community, and back again. As part of this effort, he will, during his tenure as president of the AACR, bring together scientists and other professionals working in a variety of disciplines to discuss the latest findings in the field and to stimulate the development of new research in cancer health disparities.