Press Release
Aug 05, 2022
Contact: Chris Martin, IASLC Media Relations, cmartin@davidjamesgroup.com, 630.670.2745
VIENNA, Austria (August 6, 2022) ⎯ Dr. Valerie Rusch was awarded the Adi F. Gazdar IASLC Merit Award today at the 2022 IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer.
The Adi F. Gazdar IASLC Merit Award proudly recognizes and honors Dr. Gazdar’s lifelong dedication to lung cancer research through his pioneering work in molecular pathology.
This year’s recipient, Dr. Valerie W. Rusch is an attending thoracic surgeon, vice chair of Clinical Research, Department of Surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City, where she holds the Miner Family Chair in Intrathoracic Cancers.
After residencies in general and cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Washington, she served as a faculty associate at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, then as a faculty member at the University of Washington.
She moved to MSKCC in 1989, where she served as chief of thoracic surgery from 2000 to 2013. Dr. Rusch’s career has been devoted to thoracic surgical oncology, to clinical and translational research, and she has been PI for multiple NCI-sponsored Cooperative Group clinical trials.
Dr. Rusch is a past president of the American College of Surgeons and has held leadership positions in the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Society for Thoracic Surgeons, the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. She has served as a director and chair of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. Dr. Rusch is the chair of the IASLC 10th Staging Edition Project.
Dr. Rusch is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, is an author of more than 450 peer-reviewed publications, holds more than 50 visiting professorships, and has delivered more than 400 invited lectures.
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About the IASLC
The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) is the only global organization dedicated solely to the study of lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies. Founded in 1974, the association's membership includes more than 7,500 lung cancer specialists across all disciplines in over 100 countries, forming a global network working together to conquer lung and thoracic cancers worldwide. The association also publishes the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the primary educational and informational publication for topics relevant to the prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment of all thoracic malignancies. Visit www.iaslc.org for more information.
About the WCLC
The WCLC is the world’s largest meeting dedicated to lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies, attracting more than 7,000 researchers, physicians and specialists from more than 100 countries. The goal is to increase awareness, collaboration and understanding of lung cancer, and to help participants implement the latest developments across the globe. The conference will cover a wide range of disciplines and unveil several research studies and clinical trial results. For more information, visit https://wclc2022.iaslc.org/.