International Cholangiocarcinoma Research Network - ICRN

International Cholangiocarcinoma
Research Network

The ICRN is a global collaboration of research groups from renowned institutions who are working in concert to improve knowledge about cholangiocarcinoma etiology, prevention, early detection, treatment, and prognosis. The network is comprised of highly talented individuals from a spectrum of disciplines, perspectives, and research methods who share a passion to make significant scientific advances to improve outcomes for patients with cholangiocarcinoma.

Our core
 mission:

to rapidly translate scientific discoveries into practice for cholangiocarcinoma patients through a collaborative, highly translational international research network.

Our Executive Committee Leadership

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Mitesh Borad, MD

Chair

Mayo Clinic

Mitesh Borad, MD
Chair

Dr. Borad is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and the Director of Phase I Drug Development at Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, Arizona. Before joining Mayo Clinic, he spent three years at the Translational Genomics Research Institute as a Genomics Medicine Scholar. He has been serving on the NCI Hepatobiliary Task Force since 2011. His research interests focus on exploring various molecular and immunological subtypes and discovering novel targeted therapies for providing precision medicine for hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer patients.

(Precision Therapeutics Initiative Group)

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Nilo Azad, MD

Vice Chair

John Hopkins University

Nilofer S. Azad, M.D.
Associate Professor of Oncology

Dr. Azad is an Associate Professor of Oncology and a member of the Gastrointestinal Oncology Program within the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center (SKCCC).  She completed her fellowship in Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute and became a member of our faculty in July 2008.  Since joining the faculty of the SKCCC at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Azad is the PI of numerous early phase clinical trials in solid tumors and gastrointestinal cancers.  Dr. Azad is a clinically active medical oncologist and is the co-leader of the NCI funded UM1 Developmental Therapeutics clinical research program at the SKCCC, as well as the Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics Program .  She is a member of both the Epigenetics and Colon Cancer Stand Up 2 Cancer Dream Teams, serving as a Principal on the latter.  She has been a member of the NCI Colon Cancer Task Force, the Advisory Board of the Biden Cancer Initiative, and the Executive Board of The Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation, now serving as Vice-Chair, among others.

(Precision Therapeutics Initiative Group)

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Milind Javle, MD

Immediate Past Chair

MD Anderson Cancer Center

Milind Javle, MD
Immediate Past-Chair

Dr. Javle is a Professor of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. He is the Chair of the Southwest Oncology Group Hepatobiliary Committee and member of the NCI task force on Hepatobiliary Cancers. His research interests focus on identifying molecular subtypes of pancreatic and biliary cancers and developing novel therapeutics against these cancers.

(Genotype/Phenotype Initiative Group)

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Stacie Lindsey

Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation

Stacie Lindsey

Stacie’s brother, Mark Clements, was diagnosed in 2005 and ultimately passed away from Cholangiocarcinoma on January 19, 2007. Stacie advocated for her brother, extensively researched treatment options and began networking with other patients, researchers and healthcare professionals. From this experience, the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation was born.

Stacie is a founding member and has served on the board of directors since its inception. Stacie resides in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she is the mother of five children. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Brigham Young University, and is an active member in her church and community.

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Reham Abdel-Wahab, MD, PhD

Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation

Reham Abdel-Wahab, MD, PhD

Dr. Reham Abdel-Wahab is the Chief Scientific Officer of the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation and an Assistant Professor of Clinical Oncology at Assiut University, Egypt. She obtained her MD and Ph.D. degrees from Assiut University. She had prior research experience in Canada and Denmark in 2011. Then, She joined the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center as a postdoctoral fellow for 5-years from 2013 until 2018 after being awarded a joint supervision scholarship from the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education to complete her Ph.D. thesis. Her research interest is primarily in the field of Hepatobiliary Cancers. 
 
Since 2017, she has voluntarily made a tremendous effort as the Assistant Program Coordinator for the ICRN, and in 2019, she was promoted to be the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation Chief Scientific Officer. Moreover, she is the recipient of the 2018 ASCO Global Young Investigator Award for her project to evaluate variation in the genomic and immune profiling between Asian and Western extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma patients. Also, she previously received the MD Anderson Cancer Center Marion Edwards Fellowship Award in Hepatic Oncology in 2017 for her unique contribution in the field of hepatobiliary cancers research, the leadership award in 2013 from the American University of Beirut/Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center course of oncologic sciences, and the technology transfer grant award from the European Society for Radiation Oncology in 2012.
Since she is recognized as an expert in hepatobiliary cancers, she received the invitation to join the expert panel for the 2018 ASCO Educational book. Also, she was invited by the ASCO daily news managing editor to author a clinical corner column addressing questions raised by the annual ASCO conference attendees in 2017. So far, she published over 25 papers, 55 meeting abstracts in national and international meetings, and few book chapters. She is on the editorial board of many journals. She has a lengthy record of more than 100 peer reviews in several well-recognized oncology journals, confirming her status as a trusted researcher.

Our Executive Committee Members

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Ghassan Abou-Alfa, MD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Ghassan Abou-Alfa, MD

Dr. Abou-Alfa is a Medical Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is leading several national and international clinical trials for hepatobiliary cancer patients. His research interests focus on improving the effectiveness of cancer therapy by incorporating small novel biological molecules that target cancer in the treatment of chemotherapy-resistant hepatobiliary cancers.

(Neoadjuvant Targeted Therapy Initiative Group)

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Laura Goff, MD

Vanderbilt University

Laura Williams Goff

Dr. Goff is a medical oncologist who specializes in gastrointestinal cancers, particularly hepatobiliary cancers.  Dr. Goff received her medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.  She went on to complete a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.  Dr. Goff then moved to Vanderbilt University for fellowship training in Hematology and Oncology.  She joined the faculty in the GI Oncology program at Vanderbilt in 2007 and completed a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation in 2008. Additionally, she served as the Associate Director of the Hematology-Oncology Fellowship Program at Vanderbilt from 2009-2019 and has served as the Medical Director for Hematology-Oncology since 2018. She has been a member of the NCI Hepatobiliary Cancers Task Force, the American Society of Clinical Oncology Professional Development Committee, Education Committee and Scientific Program Committee, and the Executive Committee of the International Cholangiocarcinoma Research Network. Dr. Goff’s research focuses on developing the use of new therapeutics in hepatobiliary cancers through clinical trials.

(Precision Therapeutics Initiative Group)

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Lipika Goyal, MD

MGH/Harvard

Lipika Goyal, M.D., MPhil

Lipika is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the faculty in Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center.  She completed her undergraduate degree in neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania and then received a Rhodes Scholarship to pursue a Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at the University of Oxford.  She completed her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and then went on to do her residency from the Brigham and Woman’s Hospital and her hematology/oncology fellowship at the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.  She currently leads the Liver Cancer Research Program at MGH and serves as the principal investigator of multiple clinical trials in hepatobiliary cancers.  Dr. Goyal has been recognized for her work in understanding clinically acquired FGFR resistance in patients with FGFR2 fusion positive cholangiocarcinoma.  She serves on the Hepatobiliary Cancers Panel of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the Steering Committee for National Cancer Institute Liver Cancer Moonshot Program. Her research is supported by American Cancer Society Clinical Scientist Development Grant, National Institutes of Health GI SPORE, the Department of Defense, and the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation Andrea Marie Fuquay Research Fellowship.

(Genotype/Phenotype Initiative Group)

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Eugene Koay, MD, PhD

MD Anderson Cancer Center

Eugene Koay, MD, PhD

Dr. Koay is an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Co-Director of Gastrointestinal Radiation Oncology for the MD Anderson Cancer Network. His research interests focus on designing clinical trials to make various radiotherapy technologies more effective with fewer side effects and  use of quantitative diagnostic imaging and machine learning for early detection of hepatobiliary cancers.

(Big Data, AI, and Real-World Evidence Initiative Group)

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Amit Mahipal, MBBS

Mayo Clinic

Amit Mahipal, MBBS

Dr. Mahipal is an Associate Professor of Medical Oncology at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, and a member of their Phase I Clinical Trial Program. He is the Principal Investigator for several early phase clinical trials, including first-in-human studies. His research interests focus on developing novel therapeutic agents and identifying biomarkers that could develop personalized therapies for hepatobiliary cancer patients. 

(Big Data, AI, and Real-World Evidence Initiative Group)

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Shishir Maithel, MD

Winship Cancer Institute

Shishir Maithel, MD, FACS

Dr. Maithel is a Professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine, and the Scientific Director of the Emory Liver and Pancreas Center and Katz Foundation Research Program in Surgical Oncology. He is a member of the Discovery and Developmental Therapeutics Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute. He is leading several national clinical trials. His research interests focus on identifying tumor-specific molecular biomarkers as predictors of treatment outcomes for hepatobiliary cancers.

(Neoadjuvant Targeted Therapy Initiative Group)

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Kabir Mody, MD

Mayo Clinic

Kabir Mody, MD

Dr. Mody is an Associate Professor of Medical Oncology at Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida. His research focus is on investigating novel therapeutics for hepatobiliary cancers, exploring the role of liquid biopsy, and other less invasive modalities in early diagnosis and as prognostic and predictive biomarkers.

(Liquid Biopsy Initiative Group)

Dr. Lewis Roberts

Lewis Roberts, MB, ChB, PhD

Mayo Clinic

Lewis Roberts, MB, ChB, PhD

Dr. Roberts is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. He is the Director of the Hepatobiliary Neoplasia Clinic and Associate Director of Pre-Doctoral Programs in the Center for Clinical and Translational Science. His research interests focus on exploring the molecular mechanisms of hepatobiliary carcinogenesis and developing new biomarkers and clinical approaches for early diagnosis and treatment. He is leading the Genomic Wide Association Study for Cholangiocarcinoma.

(Genotype/Phenotype Initiative Group)

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Flavio Rocha, MD, FACS

Virginia Mason University

Flavio G. Rocha, MD, FACS
Virginia Mason Medical Center

Dr. Rocha is a surgical oncologist and hepatopancreatobiliary surgeon in the Section of General, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. In addition he is the Director of Research in the Digestive Disease Institute and Associate Medical Director of the Floyd and Delores Jones Cancer Institute. He holds an appointment as a Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington and Clinical Professor of Medical Education and Clinical Sciences at Washington State University.  After attending the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, Dr. Rocha completed a residency in general surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a postdoctoral research fellowship in tissue engineering at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston.  After residency, he served as a surgical oncology and hepatopancreatobiliary surgery fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.  His clinical practice encompasses all aspects of benign and malignant disease of the liver, bile ducts and pancreas.  As an investigator at the Benaroya Research Institute in Seattle, his research is focused on biomarker discovery and novel therapeutics in pancreaticobiliary cancer.  He has been funded by ASCO and the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation. He currently sits on the editorial boards of HPB, Annals of Surgical Oncology, Journal of Surgical Oncology and PLoS ONE.  In addition, he is the current Chair of the Membership Committee in the AHPBA and Vice-Chair of the SWOG Surgery Committee.  Lastly, he has served on the Pancreas Task Force at the NCI and is the surgical lead of the International Cholangiocarcinoma Research Network.

(Liquid Biopsy Initiative Group)

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Sameek Roychowdhury, MD, PhD

The Ohio State University

Sameek Roychowdhury, MD, PhD

Dr. Roychowdhury is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and the Department of Pharmacology at Ohio State University. As a member of the Translational Therapeutics Program at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, he is developing clinical trials focused on genomic alterations to identify optimal therapies for patients.

(Liquid Biopsy Initiative Group)

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Florin Marian Selaru, MD

Johns Hopkins Hospital

Florian Selaru

Dr. Selaru is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Oncology, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University. He is a member of the Institute of Nanobiotechnology at Johns Hopkins University and also leads their Fundamental and Applied Science Laboratory in Cancer Research. His research interests focus on exploring the molecular biology of hepatobiliary cancers, identifying markers for early diagnosis, and determining mechanisms by which premalignant conditions such as primary sclerosing cholangitis and liver cirrhosis can lead to hepatobiliary cancer development.

(Drug Repurposing, Natural Products and Novel Cytotoxic Initiative Group)

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Rachna Shroff, MD

University of Arizona Cancer Center

Rachna Shroff, MD, MS

Dr. Shroff is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology, and Chief of the Section of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at the University of Arizona Cancer Center. She participates in the Southwest Oncology Group GI Committee and the NCI Hepatobiliary Taskforce. Her research interests focus on biliary and pancreatic cancers, including developing personalized novel targeted therapies and identifying new molecular biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment.

(Neoadjuvant Targeted Therapy Initiative Group)

International

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John Bridgewater, PhD

University College London Hospital
United Kingdom

John Bridgewater, PhD

After qualifying in medicine and surgery in 1986, Professor Bridgewater specialised in medical oncology at the Middlesex, Mount Vernon and Royal Marsden Hospitals.  He undertook a PhD in gene therapy at the Institute of Cancer Research, and subsequently took a senior lecturer position in medical oncology at UCL in 1999.

Professor Bridgewater leads the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Study Group upper gastrointestinal malignancy, focussing on clinical and translational research.  He has contributed to landmark studies in gastrointestinal (GI) malignancy and is chief and co-chief investigator on a number of lead studies in the NCRI upper-GI research portfolio.  He is senior author on the BILCAP and ABC-02 studies that have defined the management of biliary tract cancer in the adjuvant and advanced settings respectively.  He was a lead investigator on the New EPOC study and has helped develop the portfolios of the colorectal and pancreatic subgroups.

Professor Bridgewater serves on several research committees including the Clinical Trials Advisory and Awards Committee, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence committee.

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Suebpong Tanasanvimon, MD

Bumrungrad International Hospital, Thailand

Suebpong Tanasanvimon, MD

Dr. Tanasanvimon is a professor of Medical Oncology at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. He established and led a hepatobiliary biobank at Chulalongkorn University. He is the 2011 ASCO Long-term International Fellowship (LIFe) recipient, supported by The Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation. His research focus is to develop diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers for hepatobiliary cancers.

Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation

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Melinda Bachini

Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation
Research Advocate

Melinda Bachini

Melinda Bachini, is an 11-year survivor of cholangiocarcinoma. She was treated at the National Cancer Institute starting in 2012 with a clinical trial using Adoptive Cell Therapy. Due to her exceptional and breakthrough response to treatment at NIH, her story was published in the New York Times and other media. 

Melinda is married and the mother of six children, grandmother to one. She is passionate about patient advocacy. Her personal experience with previous and current treatments allows for great insight to patients participating in clinical trials.  Her position as Director of Advocacy for the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation, allows Melinda to interact, support and educate others touched by this cancer.  She shares her story with as many cancer patients as possible in hopes of giving courage to those in need.

Melinda serves as patient advocate for the NCI Hepatobiliary Task Force, the NCI Patient Advocate Steering Committee (PASC), ECOG-ACRIN GI Committee, ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Advocacy Committee, and the NCRA.  Melinda attended the 2016, 2017, and 2018 NCCS, CPAT Symposium and advocated on Capitol Hill. She participated as a panelist in the Cancer Moonshot – Community Oncology Event at the White House, told her personal story and was introduced by her state Senator for the Innovation and Access in Quality Cancer Care at the US Capitol. In June of 2017 she spoke with nine US Senators at NIH to share her personal story of how research has prolonged her life.  Melinda has served as a Consumer Reviewer for the Department of Defense for several years.

The International Cholangiocarcinoma Research Network (ICRN) is a program of the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation.