2023 Board of Directors Election Results

We are pleased to announce the results of the 2023 IASLC Board of Directors (BOD) election. We received a strong slate of candidates for a limited number of open Board of Directors positions, and I want to thank you for taking part in this process. From submitting nominations and campaigning to sharing your thoughts and opinions, your engagement, enthusiasm, and passion are central to why the IASLC remains the premier global lung cancer research organization.

As an IASLC Board member, how do you envision helping the organization adhere to its international and multidisciplinary mission?

See the newly elected board members' full answers below by clicking on the red + on the bottom of their block.

President-Elect

Caicun Zhou

Tongji University Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital

China

International and multidisciplinary features are the most important mission of IASLC. As an active IASLC board member, I will make every effort to achieve the above specific mission. I will help IASLC to prepare more educational sessions and regional workshops on different continents. I will help IASLC to organize and launch more global multi-center clinical trials. I will accelerate educational programs in various formats including webinars, podcasts, network platforms, and a virtual library of meeting content. I will increase the local exchanges and collaboration among different countries and attract more members from various countries, regions, and backgrounds. More importantly, to keep the feature of diversity of IASLC. At the same time, bringing together clinicians and researchers can both educate and foster communication on scientific and clinical advances. I will focus on member experience and the interactions with scientific projects, education and continuing medical education (CME), patient advocacy, and publications. I will strengthen multidisciplinary cooperation and research, prevention, and treatment, integrating the wisdom of thoracic surgeons, medical oncologists, pathologists, radiologists, pulmonologists, pharmacists, scientists, bioinformatics, and artificial intelligence specialists, et al., to accelerate the pace of thoracic malignancy research worldwide, including focusing on patients with rare mutations and rare thoracic malignancy. In this scenario, IASLC can help build criteria for lung cancer precision diagnosis and therapy. IASLC should be involved in rapid integration of molecular biomarkers into clinical practice and be the leader in defining international standards and guidelines for molecular testing, staging and early detection & screening, and patient management.

Asia & Rest of World #1 (any gender, any specialty)

Benjamin Solomon

Medical Oncology at Peter MacCallum Cancer Center

Australia

I am fortunate to have a good understanding of the benefits of the IASLC and its international and multidisciplinary mission from the very earliest stages of my career education as an IASLC post-doctoral fellow at the University of Colorado (2004-2006) right through to my present role as an experienced clinician-scientist. My vision is to support the IASLC in delivering on this vision by enhancing global reach and collaboration. Some of the key areas that I would be keen to contribute to the IASLCs work are:
1. Addressing Disparities in Cancer Care—equitable access to cancer care.
2. Assist in Global efforts to target reversible causes of lung cancer—smoking/vaping and pollution.
3. Opportunities to drive scientific advances by fostering global collaborations.
4. Engage Lung Cancer patients and advocates. I feel that it is important to maintain collegiality and sense that we are all working together to improve outcomes for patients with thoracic malignancies.

Asia & Rest of the World #2 (ANY GENDER, ANY SPECIALTY)

Wen-Zhao Zhong

Guangdong General Hospital Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences

China

As an IASLC Board member, I will keep dedicating my time in providing high-quality lung cancer care, carrying out high-impact studies, promoting lung cancer early prevention and bringing forefront evidence in guiding the precision oncology. Being a thoracic surgeon, I will undoubtedly design and organize more compelling and clinical-oriented topics for thoracic surgeons and provide more educational session for young physicians and doctors from primary institutions. Indeed, surgery involved multidisciplinary would be the main key of these topics to further emphasis the important role of surgery in potentially resectable and oligometastatic NSCLC. Besides, amplifying the impact of WCLC through social media and delivering the advances of novel therapeutic approaches to the patients immediately would be another practical measure. Last but not least, enlarge the influence of JTO and attract more high-quality clinical trials through enhancing the interaction with more principal investigators and key opinion leaders.

Europe (any gender, any specialty)

Antoni Rosell

Pulmonary Medicine at Hospital University Germans Trias I Pujol

Spain

Global health threats must be considered, studied, diagnosed, and treated from a multidimensional and multidisciplinary perspective. In noncommunicable diseases, lung cancer has a significant and disgraceful role, and to reverse this situation, a smart and open-minded view is crucial to reduce it to its minimal incidence and mortality. A highly functional network allows organizations "to think globally and act locally", meaning that the projects and actions they promote will be more efficient. IASLC has the leadership and power to maximize this functional network, which enables combining cutting-edge molecular research and public health actions in low- and high-income countries. Lung cancer is a multi-stage process that needs to engage not only the far more visible specialty as medical oncology but also the other medical specialties. Pulmonology, in particular, has to take responsibility for this process and needs to be part of the team. To promote interest in smoking cessation, Screening programs, and diagnostic and therapeutic bronchoscopy, specific medical education has to be fostered and multicentric research facilitated by the IASLC. In summary, a global health threat such as lung cancer requires an highly functional network that can adapt the IALSC research and actions to each society's complexity and harmonize the empowerment of all the specialties.

Female (any specialty, any region)

Natasha Leighl

Princess Margaret Cancer Centre

Canada

My goal as a thoracic oncologist is to improve outcomes for our patients. Throughout my career, I have been passionate about bringing our community together across countries and disciplines to advance the study of thoracic cancers, to educate providers, patients and the public, and to improve the patient journey. With the IASLC, I will advance our shared vision of combining the best science with best practices, empowering patients and providers to achieve better outcomes. As a mentor, I am privileged to support and promote a diverse group of individuals from many backgrounds and interests. During my career, I have fostered many collaborations internationally. As a researcher and oncologist with a global network, I am committed to ongoing research and international guidelines to help us provide better care for all patients. These initiatives include promotion of broader access to early detection, diagnosis and treatment, moving us closer to decreasing the global burden of thoracic cancers. I will continue to bring my passion for promoting diversity, multidisciplinary collaboration and scientific excellence to my role with the IASLC. Strengthening our multinational, diverse community is a priority for me, as is sharing our passion and progress with the next generation of researchers, experts and advocates. As we continue our journey to eradicate thoracic cancers, I know that we work better together.

North America (male, any specialty)

Ignacio Wistuba

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

United States

The main goals of potential IASLC Board members as the following:

To continue and enhance the collaborative, multidisciplinary, and inclusive approach of IASLC to increase the membership, audience, and level of influence, particularly in parts of the world or scientific areas that need more development.
As a pathology member of the thoracic malignancies multidisciplinary team, make sure that all scientific and clinical areas of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer have an active role.
Scientifically, support projects and programs that focus on lung cancer prevention, particularly by interception the progression of premalignancy, and to support projects and programs that bring effective therapies to earlier stages of the disease, such as surgically resectable lung tumors.
Finally, support and assist in the enhancement of the IASLC educational, training, and mentorship initiatives to train the next generation of scientists and clinicians in thoracic malignancies, and importantly, provide leadership opportunities to this next generation of IASLC members and audience.

Radiation Oncology (any gender, any region)

Joe Chang

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

United States

Lung cancer remains the number one cancer killer in the world. In recent years, and with new developments of lung cancer screening, advanced radiation/surgical technologies and revolutionary immunotherapy and molecular targeted therapy, lung cancer mortality has been significantly reduced in developed countries. It has never been so crucial that we need multidisciplinary care for lung cancer so we can provide our patients with individualized optimal therapy based on pathology/molecular analysis, image-guidance and combined modality management. IASLC is the best platform in the world to promote multidisciplinary management, research collaboration, and education for our lung cancer community. As a thoracic radiation oncologist, I will devote my time and effort to work with other board members and all IASLC members to promote/educate the radiation oncology community to catch up to this new wave of research and clinical opportunity in the era of molecular profiling and immunotherapy. We need to lead/participate ongoing clinical research projects, extend the indications of radiotherapy or surgery from traditional localized lung cancer to metastatic disease using evidence-based approaches. As our patients live longer, their quality of life and long-term complications from treatments will become more important. They also have higher risk of secondary malignancies. I will work with IASLC to promote post-treatment care, particularly in developing countries. It is also equally important that we need to help developing countries to promote smoking cessation, early diagnosis, and multidisciplinary care. With background in both developing and developed countries, I have unique knowledge/quality to bridge between east and west, developed and developing countries.