From Research to Clinical Application

Every GIST patient is unique based on their biology and what treatment to which they will potentially respond.

Dr. Lori Rink, Fox Chase Cancer Center, and Dr. Inga-Marie Schaefer, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, are two researchers who are making discoveries in their respective laboratories to uncover the unique biomarkers in GIST that will be future drug targets.

Dr. Margaret von Mehren, Fox Chase Cancer Center, will moderate the webinar and help the audience understand why these important discoveries in the lab are important to clinicians. This concept of translational medicine is an important field as it helps bring advances into the clinic that can directly impact the survival of GIST patients.

About the Presenters

Lori Rink, PhD
Assistant Professor, Molecular Therapeutics, Fox Chase Cancer Center. Dr. Rink studied at the Biology at the University of Scranton  and  received her doctorate in  for a Doctorate in Molecular Biology from Temple University followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at Fox Chase Cancer Center.  She is an Assistant Professor in the Molecular Therapeutic program. Along with Dr. von Mehren, two graduate students, and a post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Rink’s lab is dedicated to investigating why some GIST patients eventually develop a resistance to Gleevec, discovering combinations of drugs that will attack GIST, and identifying markers that could predict how patients will respond to Gleevec.

Inga-Marie Schaefer, MD
Associate Pathologist, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Instructor in Pathology, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Schaefer is an instructor at the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. After graduating with an M.D. degree from Georg-August-University Goettingen in Germany, she trained in Anatomic Pathology in Germany and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her post-doctoral research in Dr. Jonathan Fletcher’s translational sarcoma laboratory focused on characterizing mechanisms of genomic progression in GIST/sarcoma, combining diagnostics, biology, and genetics. Dr. Schaefer is now evaluating mechanisms of incremental cell cycle dysregulation in GIST progression.

About the Moderator

Margaret von Mehren, MD
Associate Professor, Director of Sarcoma, Fox Chase Cancer Center
Dr. von Mehren matriculated at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, where she majored in Biology and minored in Philosophy, and graduating in 1985 with honors. She received her medical degree from Albany Medical College in Albany, NY. Dr. von Mehren completed an internship and residency at New York University Medical Center in New York before moving to Philadelphia for her fellowship in medical oncology at the Fox Chase Cancer Center and Temple University. After completing fellowship, Dr. von Mehren joined the faculty of the department of Medical Oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center where she remains today as and Associate Professor and the director of the Sarcoma program. She is a member of the NCCN panel for soft tissue sarcomas and GIST task force, as well as the Intergroup GIST Task force. She also volunteers at the NIH Pediatric Wildtype GIST clinic biannually.