35th Anniversary Awards

With over 20 years of service as SITC’s Executive Director, Tara represents the heart of SITC and our cancer immunotherapy community. She is the visionary behind many of the society’s marquee initiatives and programs including, but not limited to, SITC’s connectED platform, Sparkathon, the Certificate in Cancer Immunotherapy, Advances in Cancer Immunotherapy regional education program, and the Primer as part of our Annual Meeting offering.

Implementing the vision of dozens of leaders year after year, she synthesizes the vision of many into consistent growth in both challenging and prosperous times. She critically expanded the impact of the society beyond the scientific and clinical community to government, regulatory agencies, industry and, most importantly, patients.

Cancer Research Institute’s (CRI) CEO and Director of Scientific Affairs, Jill O’Donnell-Tormey, PhD, has overseen the evolution and exponential growth of the core programs of the CRI. These accomplishments were the fruits of her careful and patient nurturing of global collaborations, in line with the CRI spirit. The growth and accomplishments of the CRI under her leadership document the continued success of the efforts that she effectively coordinated making the CRI flourish at the forefront of the cancer immunotherapy field.

After losing her daughter, Charlie, to cancer, Valerie Guild founded what would become AIM at Melanoma. Under her leadership, AIM at Melanoma has grown to be a global foundation that, in her own words, tackles the “hard stuff”—projects that are deemed critical for progressing research but also considered too difficult to accomplish.

This year, Valerie passed away from complications due to cancer. To honor her memory, SITC recognized Ms. Valerie Guild as the sole recipient of the Patient Advocacy Award for her efforts to find more effective treatments, and ultimately cure melanoma, through the development of AIM at Melanoma.

This nominated award honors individuals whose distinguished leadership, contributions and dedication have fostered the growth and success of SITC

Nora Disis, MD, FACP University of Washington	Alessandra Cesano, MD, PhD ESSA Pharma, Inc.	Bernard Fox, PhD Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, Providence Cancer Institute	David Kaufman, MD, PhD Third Rock Ventures	Howard Kaufman, MD, FACS Immuneering Corporation

This nominated award recognizes an individual who has made immeasurable contributions and demonstrated outstanding commitment to the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer (JITC)—the official journal of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

Pedro J. Romero, MD
University of Lausanne

This nominated award honors SITC members who are visionaries in the field and continue to show extraordinary ingenuity with continuous contributions in support of advancing the mission of the society. Recipients of this award have helped strengthen SITC's role in advancing the science and application of cancer immunotherapy, and have demonstrated their dedication to the society and to the field with a distinguished record of service in leadership and/or committee roles. They are leaders whose counsel others seek and who selflessly give their time and talent. They have been forward-thinking during course-changing events, and their engagement has reflected a pivotal influence on the direction of the society.

Lisa Butterfield, PhD Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy/University of California San Francisco	Michael Lotze, MD, FACS University of Pittsburgh	Franco Marincola, MD Refuge Biotechnologies	Jon Wigginton, MD Cullinan

This nominated award recognizes partners from government, industry, and organizations who have made great strides in cancer immunotherapy and have forged meaningful relationships with SITC in a joint effort to propel the field forward.

Paolo Antonio Ascierto, MD Istituto Nazionale Tumori-Fondazione 'G. Pascale'	Joan Fowler, PharmD, BCPP Creative Educational Concepts	Raj Puri, MD, PhD Food and Drug Administration (FDA)	Kristin Hege, MD Bristol Myers Squibb	Daniel Chen, MD, PhD IGM Biosciences, Inc.	James Gulley, MD, PhD National Cancer Institute (NCI)

This award recognizes teams of scientists that have made a long-standing contribution to the field of cancer immunotherapy over the past 35 years. Click here to view the full list of awardees.

Advanced T cell Engineering Against Malignancies (“A-TEAM”)  Earle A. Chiles Research Institute Hopkins Immunotherapy Team Immunotherapy of Human Tumors Lausanne Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

The Lloyd J. Old Lab Family The NCI Cancer Immunotherapy Program  Synthetic Long Peptide (SLP) Stream Team TOMI (Toronto Ohashi Mak Immunotherapy) Tumor Microenvironment Study Pole (TMSP), Paris The University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC)

Click here to view recipients of all other SITC annual awards, including Connect-a-Colleague Award, Young Investigator Awards, Journal of ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC) Best Paper Awards and 2020 SITC Fellowships and Award.

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