Lectureship Awards

Robert J. Ginsberg Lectureship Award for Surgery    

Leah Backhus MD MPH FACS is a Professor in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford University.  She trained in general surgery at the University of Southern California and cardiothoracic surgery at the University of California Los Angeles.  She practices at Stanford Hospital and is Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the VA Palo Alto.  Her surgical practice consists of general thoracic surgery with special emphasis on thoracic oncology and minimally invasive surgical techniques.  She heads up the Thoracic Surgical Health Services Research group in the Division of Thoracic Surgery and has grant funding through the Veterans Affairs Administration with a VA Merit Award and is Co-PI on an NIH RO1 translational study examining diaphragm dysfunction among esophagectomy patients.  She is a Charter Member Reviewer for Imaging Guided Interventions and Surgery (IGIS) study section in the NIH.  Her current research interests are in cancer surveillance and survivorship care in evaluating needs, quality of life, and adherence to national standards of care.  She is a member of the National Lung Cancer Roundtable of the American Cancer Society and has served as a professional member of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Advisory Panel on Improving Healthcare Systems.  She is a member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and sits on the Board of Directors of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS).  As an educator, Dr. Backhus is the Associate Program Director for the Stanford Thoracic Track Residency program and prior Chair of the ACGME Review Committee for Thoracic Surgery.  She has also been the recipient of national awards for teaching by the Thoracic Surgery Residents Association and for excellence in her field with the STS Extraordinary Women in Cardiothoracic Surgery Award.

Clifton F. Mountain Lectureship Award for Staging

Dr. Chi-Fu Jeffrey Yang is a surgeon-scientist specializing in thoracic oncology.  With regard to his research as co-principal investigator and project leader, he was awarded a $3.9 million R01 grant to develop algorithms to detect impending complications in thoracic surgery patients prior to symptom onset.  In 2023, he was awarded a $1.5 million R18 grant to lead—as co-principal investigator and project leader—a multi-center clinical trial evaluating the impact of lung cancer screening in Black women at high risk of developing lung cancer; this trial will build upon his previous work that demonstrated the severe limitations of the current lung cancer screening guidelines. In addition, Dr. Yang serves as the Vice Chair for the Thoracic Surgery Group of Alliance and is leading, as co-principal investigator, a $5 million multi-center clinical trial evaluating adjuvant immunotherapy for completely resected small cell lung cancer.

Dr. Yang is a passionate advocate for community outreach and leads the American Lung Cancer Screening Initiative, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that he founded in 2018 to increase access to lung cancer screening for at-risk populations.  The work has been recognized by over 350 mayors and governors from all 50 states, who have issued proclamations highlighting the importance of lung cancer screening.

Dr. Yang is strongly focused on contributing to the IASLC.  Over the past seven years, Dr. Yang and his mentees have given seven full-length oral presentations and ten mini-oral presentations at the World Conference on Lung Cancer, which have been featured at the IASLC press conferences and podcasts because of their significance.  In addition, he led his institution's efforts to contribute over 500 patients to the IASLC Staging Project.  Dr. Yang is also co-chair of the IASLC CT screening symposiums of 2023 and 2024 and the co-chair of the Early Detection and Screening Program of the 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer.    

Tsuguo Naruke Lectureship Award for Surgery    
 

Dr. Wentao Fang has been a full member of the IASLC during the past decade and has been actively involved in the following activities:

1. IASLC Staging and Prognostic Factor Committee – As a Steering Committee member, Dr. Fang has been taking full responsibility for SPFC-SC during the revision of the 9th staging process.  Shanghai Chest Hospital contributed more than 2000 cases to the lung cancer database.  As the Chair of the Mediastinal Tumor Committee of the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, he helped accrue more than 2000 cases from the Chinese national database and contributed them to the thymic tumor dataset.  He has been acting as the Chair of the Esophageal cancer Subcommittee, Chair of the N factor working group of the Thymic tumor Subcommittee, and a member of the T factor working group of the Lung cancer Subcommittee.  Dr. Fang has helped to draft the T3 paper for lung cancer as the last author, and the N and M paper for thymic tumor as the first author.  He has also helped prepare the staging manual for esophageal cancer and for the N category of thymic tumor.
2. Dr. Fang has been serving as a program committee member for WCLC during the past few years, organizing sessions on lung cancer screening and thymic tumors.  He has chaired sessions and acted as a speaker at education sessions each year at WCLC.
3. In recent years, Dr. Fang has also joined the activities of the Communication Committee.
4. Currently, Dr. Fang is a member of the Multidisciplinary Clinical Science Committee.  He is also participating in the IASLC Biomarker Survey Focus Group.