Cincinnati Children’s Physician to Advise Cancer “Moonshot” Blue Ribbon Panel

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Filling Essential Role

Maryam Fouladi, MD, MsC, FRCPC, medical director of the Brain Tumor Center at Cincinnati Children's, has been asked to advise the National Cancer Institute's National Cancer Moonshot on pediatric cancers. Fouladi, a physician and translational investigator, considers the invitation a unique opportunity to help come up with innovative and novel strategies to improve outcomes in children with poor-prognosis cancers.

CINCINNATI – The medical director of the Brain Tumor Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has been invited to advise a Blue Ribbon Panel of medical experts in the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Moonshot, an initiative launched by the National Cancer Institute (part of NIH).

Maryam Fouladi, MD, MSc, FRCPC, is a physician and translational investigator at the Cincinnati Children’s Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute. She was invited in April to participate in a working group on pediatric cancers by Douglas R. Lowy, MD, acting director at NCI.

“Through your participation you will be filling an essential role in advising the institute and the National Cancer Moonshot,” Lowy wrote in an email to Fouladi.

Fouladi joined Cincinnati Children’s in 2008, coming from St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. She is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine and the Marjorie J. Johnson Endowed Chair in Brain Tumor Translational Research. Fouladi serves on and has chaired a number of national collaborative boards and committees focused on research and improved therapies for pediatric brain cancers, including the Children’s Oncology Group and the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium.

“This is a great opportunity to come up with novel strategies to conduct innovative, nimble, collaborative basic science, translational and clinical research that will improve outcomes in children with poor-prognosis cancers,” Fouladi said of her appointment.

The National Cancer Moonshot initiative was announced in January by President Barack Obama and is led by Vice President Joe Biden. The initiative focuses on accelerating current cancer research efforts, breaking down barriers to progress, making more therapies available to more patients, and improving the ability to detect or prevent cancer at an early stage.

About Cincinnati Children's

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center ranks third in the nation among all Honor Roll hospitals in U.S. News & World Report’s 2015 Best Children’s Hospitals. It is also ranked in the top 10 for all 10 pediatric specialties, including a #1 ranking in pulmonology and #2 in cancer and in nephrology. Cincinnati Children’s, a non-profit organization, is one of the top three recipients of pediatric research grants from the National Institutes of Health, and a research and teaching affiliate of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. The medical center is internationally recognized for improving child health and transforming delivery of care through fully integrated, globally recognized research, education and innovation. Additional information can be found at www.cincinnatichildrens.org. Connect on the Cincinnati Children’s blog, via Facebook and on Twitter.