Pamela Murphy, Ph.D., officially joins us in the roles of System Administrative Officer, MUSC Health Oncology Integrated Center of Clinical Excellence (ICCE), and as Hollings Cancer Center Associate Director of Clinical Services.

As the System Administrative Officer, Dr. Murphy will be responsible for driving MUSC Health system-wide oncology ICCE strategy, oversight of day-to-day clinical oncology operations, performance and growth of oncology clinical services, and ensuring academic integration in collaboration with the oncology ICCE Chief and the Director of Hollings Cancer Center.

As Associate Director of Clinical Services at Hollings, she will serve as a member of the cancer center’s senior leadership team, participating in strategic planning and implementation of priority initiatives that align oncology clinical operations with cancer center research priorities.

Marvella Ford, Ph.D., leads this new prostate cancer awareness and screening program that focuses on Black men, who die of prostate cancer at a rate that's nearly three times higher than white men.

Hollings partnered with 70 other National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers to issue a joint statement urging the nation’s health care systems, physicians, parents, and young adults to get human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination back on track.

“The results of this study lead me to ask this simple question: ‘Is it OK for a patient to die from cancer simply because he or she does not have health insurance?’ If the answer is ‘no’ to that question, then a true policy discussion needs to happen at a high level,” said Gerard Silvestri, M.D., about the results of this publication that found younger uninsured patients had worse cancer survival rates compared to older patients with Medicare.

With funding totaling more than $2 million from the National Cancer Institute, Alana Rojewski, Ph.D., is leading an effort to address lung cancer and smoking-related complications for HIV patients, a growing problem in this population. The project will evaluate the impact of a proactive opt-out approach to smoking cessation on the health outcomes of people living with HIV.

After analyzing more than 60,000 blood samples as part of their large-scale COVID-19 antibody study, Shikhar Mehrotra, Ph.D., and his team found that asymptomatic individuals had stronger antibody responses to COVID-19 versus symptomatic patients. The increase in cross-disciplinary research during the pandemic reveals how novel strategies can accelerate research across medical subdisciplines.

Listen to our first two episodes about cancer health disparities and the AMEN Program and the Survivors' Fit Club for breast cancer survivors, and check back often for new episodes.

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