The RACE for Children Act: Collaborating for Success

Gwen Nichols, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Co-Chair PedAL Initiative

As LLS’s chief medical officer, Dr Gwen Nichols plays a critical role in advancing cures through a unique combination of clinical, academic and pharmaceutical experience. She oversees LLS’s scientific research portfolio, patient services and policy and advocacy initiatives. A physician and scientific researcher, she has dedicated her career to advancing cures for cancers.

Most recently, Dr Nichols was oncology site head of the Roche Translational Clinical Research Center, where she worked to develop new cancer therapies, translating them from the laboratory to clinical trials. Prior to joining Roche in 2007, Dr Nichols was at Columbia University for more than ten years, where she served as the director of the Hematologic Malignancies Program.

While at Columbia University, Dr Nichols maintained an active clinical practice and received the prestigious honors of “Physician of the Year” from Columbia University and the “Humanism in Medicine Award” from the American Association of Medical Colleges.

Dr Nichols trained in internal medicine at the University of Chicago and completed post-doctoral research and a hematology-oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center where she was an attending physician. She received her medical degree with honors from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

E. Anders (Andy) Kolb, MD, Director, Blood & Bone Marrow Transplantation, Nemours Children’s Health System, Nemours Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, Co-Chair, PedAL Initiative

Dr Kolb spends about half his time treating kids who have cancer and their families and making daily life easier for them. The other half, he spends heavily involved with advanced research programs to find new cancer drugs that are more effective, with fewer side effects. These programs help kids with cancer today and in the future. The common theme to his laboratory and clinical work has been the efficient and effective translation of novel therapies into children.

As a founding member of the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded Pediatric Preclinical Testing Program, Dr Kolb successfully completed preclinical evaluations of numerous anti-cancer strategies in human tissues and aided in the translation of these agents into clinical trials. His expertise is in genomics, proteomics and cell signaling research to support the critical rationale needed for effective translational medicine.

Within the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), Dr Kolb serves as the Chair of the Myeloid Disease Committee and Member of the Scientific Council. He is Co-Chair of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Pediatric Acute Leukemia Initiative (LLS PedAL). Through this work, his focus is on collaborative science, resource stewardship, clinical research development, clinical trial design and implementation and in the necessities new agent development.

Dr Kolb attained an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a medical degree from Jefferson Medical College. He completed a residency in pediatrics at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children followed by a fellowship in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Joanna Perkins, MD, MS, Medical Director, Hematology/Oncology, PRA Health Sciences

Dr Joanna Perkins joined PRA Health Sciences in 2018 and serves as a medical director of hematology and oncology. She supports all medical aspects of study development for global clinical trials and provides medical monitoring throughout study conduct. She leads disease-specific therapeutic training for project team members. She also serves as a manager within the hematology-oncology division at PRA.

Dr Perkins is a member of the Pediatric Collaborative Team of PRA’s Center for Pediatric Clinical Development. This multidisciplinary team of pediatric experts supports all PRA-conducted projects involving pediatric product development by providing strategic consulting services as a single cross-functional global resource.

Prior to joining PRA, Dr Perkins was in clinical practice for 15 years with a focus on pediatric, adolescent and young adult leukemias and lymphomas, as well as a clinical research focus on the long-term complications of childhood cancer treatment. She served as Site Principal Investigator for the North American multi-institutional Childhood Cancer Survivor Study. She also served as the physician advisor to the marketing and communications, outreach, patient and family satisfaction and philanthropy teams of a large metropolitan pediatric health care system.

Dr Perkins is board certified in pediatrics and in pediatric hematology and oncology. She received her undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Minnesota, where she also completed residency and fellowship and a received a Master of Science degree in Clinical Research.

Missy Hansen, MSN, APRN, CNP-Pediatrics, Center for Pediatric Clinical Development, PRA Health Sciences

Ms Hansen joined PRA Health Sciences in 2019 and serves as a Pediatric Strategy Liaison in PRA’s Center for Pediatric Clinical Development, with a specific focus on pediatric oncology and the RACE for Children Act. Ms Hansen has over 26 years of experience as a pediatric nurse practitioner with the most recent 15 years in pediatric hematology/oncology. Her previous institution is one of the largest in her area and provides care for infants through young adults diagnosed with hematological and/or oncological conditions. Ms Hansen gained a broad range of knowledge for this specialized group of patients by working in inpatient, outpatient and urgent care type settings. Ms Hansen has in depth experience working with Children’s Oncology Group, which is the largest consortia with the greatest number of pediatric studies open across the world, and she also has experience with other consortiums offering pediatric to young adult trial options to patients. Ninety percent of eligible patients to be treated on a trial were enrolled on study at Hansen’s most recent clinical care institution

Learn about the ground breaking Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Pediatric Acute Leukemia Trial (LLS PedAL) and the monumental collaboration already underway among non-profits, industry pharma partners, pediatric consortia, genomics providers and Clinical Research Organizations (CROs).