Meet SWOG’s Newest Executive Officers

The SWOG leadership team we announced earlier this spring includes three new executive officers. We welcomed them to their new roles at the spring group meeting plenary, but today we would like to introduce them in a little more detail.

SWOG executive officers (at least those with specific committee portfolios) oversee the science and the development of clinical trials within their research areas and are charged with helping to stimulate innovation, coaching peak performance, and promoting team building and collaboration. They’re also key participants in group governance – for example, in contributing to the weekly Executive Review meetings (aka triage) at which we consider new research proposals.

Dr. Neeraj Agarwal is now SWOG executive officer for research in genitourinary cancers and in early therapeutics and rare cancers – a natural fit for a researcher who, for more than a decade, led early therapeutics efforts within SWOG’s GU committee. 

Dr. Agarwal is professor of medicine and a Presidential Endowed Chair of Cancer Research at University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute. Within SWOG, he’s an alumnus of our Young Investigator Training Course (now our LEAP-D course), where he worked on developing the protocol for his S1216 phase 3 trial in metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, a study since completed that has become a particularly rich source of correlative science work and insights.

Dr. Agarwal’s professional publications number north of 550 (in fact, results from one of the trials he has led appear in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine), he serves as editor-in-chief of the ASCO Daily News, and he’s one of the most-followed GU oncologists on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Our executive officer for leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma research is Dr. Alex F. Herrera, professor in the Department of Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at City of Hope Medical Center, where he’s chief of the Division of Lymphoma. 

Dr. Herrera is immediate past co-chair of the NCI’s Lymphoma Steering Committee and, a SWOG member since 2015, he has served as translational medicine chair of the group’s S1608 trial in early-progressing follicular lymphoma. 

He’s best known to most of our members, though, as chair of the landmark S1826 trial in adolescent and adult patients with advanced classic Hodgkin lymphoma, a study that led to FDA approval earlier this spring of the trial’s nivolumab + AVD chemo-immunotherapy combination for these patients. And just this week, again thanks to S1826 results, the European Commission has also approved the nivo + AVD combo for these patients.

Dr. Hagen Kennecke is SWOG executive officer for research on gastrointestinal cancers and melanoma. He’s a professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute, where he’s section chief and chief health officer of the OHSU Knight-Legacy Health Cancer Collaborative.

With a research focus on gastrointestinal cancers and neuroendocrine tumors, Dr. Kennecke serves on the NCTN’s GI Steering Committee and is immediate past chair of the NCI’s Rectal-Anal Task Force.

A member of SWOG since 2008, he co-leads the GI committee’s ano-rectal subcommittee. He has previously served as SWOG site PI for the BC [British Columbia] Cancer Agency and for the Virginia Mason Medical Center, he co-chaired SWOG’s S1005 trial in advanced gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer, and – until earlier this spring, when he accepted his current EO role – he had served for a decade as chair of SWOG’s publications committee.

Introducing SWOG’s new EOs here also gives us one more opportunity to thank their predecessors – Dr. Susan O’Brien, who served as executive officer for leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma, and Dr. Christopher Ryan, whose portfolio covered GI, GU, early therapeutics and rare cancers, and melanoma. We’re grateful to both of them for their incredible leadership over the last 13 years.

You can meet the full slate of SWOG executive officers (and other group leaders) on the “Who Leads SWOG Cancer Research Network” page on swog.org.