Dear Members of the Lombardi Community,

I am delighted to announce the appointment of Jeanne Mandelblatt, MD, MPH as the Frank M. Ewing Foundation Endowed Chair. Established in 2018, the Ewing Chair recognizes and supports an outstanding leader and researcher at Georgetown Lombardi.

Dr. Mandelblatt is the founder and inaugural director of the Georgetown Lombardi Institute for Cancer and Aging Research, and a tenured professor of oncology at Georgetown University School of Medicine. This Chair will support her leadership of the Georgetown Lombardi Institute for Cancer and Aging Research. Caring for the large and diverse population of older adults is one of the most critical challenges facing society today. Dr. Mandelblatt’s vision for the new Institute is to unravel the mysteries of aging to cure cancer, help people with cancer live longer and healthier, and ensure equity at the intersection of aging, disparities and cancer.

With her clinical translational training in geriatrics, health services research, and cancer epidemiology, Dr. Mandelblatt is an internationally recognized population scientist with more than three decades of continuously, multi-RO1 funded NIH collaborative research. Dr. Mandelblatt is one of the first cancer researchers to address cancer, disparities and aging and is the author of nearly 300 highly cited research papers focused on these topics (H-index of 81). Beginning with her publication in JAMA on cancer and aging in 1986, with her colleagues she has contributed to a large body of clinical translational research in cancer screening, treatment, and survivorship care for diverse older individuals. A unique aspect of her current clinical survivorship research is the use of population-based research findings to drive basic discovery about cancer and aging in animal models, to use mechanistic insights from the basic science laboratory to inform the next generation of clinically relevant population research studies, and to address policy questions that follow from these discoveries to increase equity in care of older women.

Dr. Mandelblatt has also used her cancer and aging expertise to lead health care policy research. Much of this work has been done as Principal Investigator of the NCI-funded Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET) Breast Cancer modeling group for the past 22 years, with numerous high impact screening publications in the Annals of Internal Medicine, NEJM and JNCI.

In recognition of her sustained leadership and collaborative scientific accomplishments, Dr. Mandelblatt was awarded a seven-year NCI Outstanding Investigator Grant in 2015 (R35) to study cancer care in older individuals and in 2020 was awarded the American Society of Preventive Oncology JF Fraumeni Jr, Distinguished Achievement Award.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Mandelblatt for her success, commitment, and dedication to cancer research!

Sincerely, 
weiner
Louis M. Weiner, MD
Director, Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center