Our Strategic Advisory Board
Professor Robert A. Figlin
Robert A. Figlin, MD, FACP, is the Steven Spielberg Family Chair in Hematology Oncology, Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Deputy Director for Cedars-Sinai Cancer, and Deputy Director of the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute. Dr. Figlin received his medical degree from the Medical College of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency and chief residency in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and a fellowship in hematology/oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is an Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Figlin was the Arthur and Rosalie Kaplan Endowed Chair of the Department of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics Research, and the Associate Director for Clinical Research at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center. Prior to that, Dr. Figlin served as the Henry Alvin and Carrie L. Meinhardt Endowed Chair in Urologic Oncology and Professor of Medicine and Urology in the Divisions of Hematology/Oncology and Urologic Oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Figlin joined the UCLA faculty as Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology and was Co-Director of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Oncology Program. He held the post of Medical Director of the Thoracic and Genitourinary Oncology Program in the Departments of Medicine, Surgery and Urology, and served as Program Director of Solid Tumor Developmental Therapeutics within the Cancer Center. Dr. Figlin serves as Editor for Kidney Cancer Journal, and his studies have appeared in Clinical Cancer Research, Journal of Clinical Oncology, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, JNCI, Lancet Oncology, and Journal of Urology, among others. He has authored over 400 peer reviewed articles, more than 70 book chapters, and has published as editor multiple books in kidney cancer.
A nationally recognized leader in genitourinary and thoracic oncology, Dr. Figlin’ s research focuses on renal cell carcinoma and thoracic malignancies. He established and directs the Kidney Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, which aims to understand the biology of kidney cancer and translate that knowledge into novel treatment approaches. His leadership is in developing novel anticancer drugs that avoid the toxicity associated with standard treatments furthers Cedars-Sinai’s tradition of compassionate patient care.
Dr. David Adams
Dr. Adams is a senior group leader in the Cancer Ageing and Somatic Mutation programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and leads the Experimental Cancer Genetics Laboratory. He is also co-head of the Cambridge Cancer Centre Cell and Molecular Biology Programme, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the Brain Tumour Charity, and a member of the SAB of the International Laboratory of Human Genome Research and a founding member of the atlas of variant effects consortium. He is also a member of the steering committee of the Society for Melanoma Research and co-leads the GenoMEL Consortium, which aims to identify genes whose mutation predisposes to melanoma development. His group uses large-scale genomic studies and genome editing to identify cancer genes and explore their function.
Professor Jose Karam
Dr. Karam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urology and Department of Translational Molecular Pathology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He received his bachelor's degree in Biology with Distinction and earned his medical degree with Distinction from the American University of Beirut. Dr. Karam’s primary clinical and research interest is renal cell carcinoma. He is certified by the American Board of Urology, and performs open, laparoscopic, and robotic surgery, individually tailored for the needs of patients with cancers of the kidney, testis and adrenal, with a special interest in surgery for locally advanced and locally recurrent disease.
Dr. Karam has a research interest in integration of targeted therapy with surgery, sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma, rare kidney cancer histologies, mouse models of renal cell carcinoma and molecular markers. He is also involved in clinical trials investigating systemic therapy in the neoadjuvant, presurgical and adjuvant settings.
Dr. Karam has authored more than 220 articles, including original research, book chapters, reviews, and invited editorials. He is on the Editorial Boards of Cancer, BJU International, Clinical Genitourinary Cancer, European Urology Oncology, and serves as Section Editor (Urologic Oncology) for Annals of Surgical Oncology, and Associate Editor for Frontiers in Oncology (Genitourinary Oncology), and is a member of the American Urological Association Testicular Cancer Guideline Panel. Dr. Karam is on the Medical Steering Committee and is Chair of the Grant Review Committee of the Kidney Cancer Association, and a member of the Programmatic Panel of the US Department of Defense Kidney Cancer Research Program.
Professor David Neal
Professor Neal is Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Oxford and Professor Emeritus of Surgical Oncology at the University of Cambridge, he's also Senior Vice President Global Research at Elsevier Plc. Professor Neal completed his medical training at University College, London and trained in surgery at the University of Leeds. He trained in urological surgery at Newcastle University where he was also a Clinical Lecturer, becoming Professor of Surgery at Newcastle in 1992.
Professor Neal received a CBE for services to surgery in the 2014 Queen's New Year's Honours List.
Professor Neal has secured over £60 million of research funding, including CRUK, NIHR and MRC grants. His publications have an "H" index of 104 and have been cited 40,000 times. He has published over 750 papers, chapters and books.