Karen Antman Honored for Cancer Research

Karen H. Antman, the dean of the Boston University School of Medicine and provost of the Medical Campus, was honored with the Distinguished Service Award for Scientific Leadership by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) at its annual meeting in Chicago last weekend. Antman, an internationally known expert in the field of breast cancer, is widely recognized for her development of a standard treatment regimen for sarcoma.

Each year ASCO’s Special Awards Program identifies individuals whose personal commitment to furthering the progress against cancer has led to major advances in the field. Research scientists and others dedicated to improving the lives of people living with cancer are nominated to receive ASCO’s highest awards. The collective efforts of this year’s recipients are credited with important strides in bettering the care of children and older adults with cancer in addition to having an impact on cancer prevention and the development of new treatment modalities.

“It is our honor to bestow upon Dr. Antman ASCO’s highest award of achievement,” says Gabriel N. Hortobagyi, ASCO’s past president and the chair of the Special Awards Committee.

Antman became provost of the Medical Campus and MED dean in May 2005. She came to BU from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she was deputy director for translational and clinical sciences in 2004 and 2005. Previously, she had spent more than 10 years on the faculty of Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, where she was Wu Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology and director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute–designated institution.

In 1993 Antman was voted Senior Faculty Teacher of the Year by medical residents at Columbia. She was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School from 1979 to 1993 and had hospital appointments at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and Presbyterian Hospital in New York.

She has written extensively about impediments to clinical research on cancer, and she has testified before Congress on the need for federal research dollars to support cancer research. She has written more than 300 journal papers and edited 5 textbooks and monographs, many with multiple editions.

Antman has served as president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Association for Cancer Research, and the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation. She was for seven years an associate editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and is on the international editorial board of Lancet and several other major medical journals. She currently sits on the advisory committee of the NIH’s Fogarty International Center.

ASCO is the world’s leading professional organization representing physicians who care for people with cancer. With more than 25,000 members, ASCO is committed to improving cancer care through scientific meetings, educational programs, and peer-reviewed journals. For ASCO information and resources, visit www.asco.org/presscenter. Patient-oriented cancer information is available at www.cancer.net.