Our People

Director

Lee J. Helman, MD

Bethesda, MD

Senior Advisor

Michael Brown, MD

Dallas, TX

Meet our strategic advisory board

Bret Alexander

Dallas, TX

Jim Amatruda, MD, PhD

Los Angeles, CA

Mary Katherine Clarke

Dallas, TX

Cigall Kadoch, PhD

Boston, MA

Richard Gorlick, MD

Houston, TX

Katherine Janeway, MD

Boston, MA

Robert G. Mennel, MD

Dallas, TX

Melinda Merchant, MD, PhD

Boston, MA

Sung Poblete, PhD, RN

New York, NY

Robert Schreiber, PhD

St. Louis, MO

Bill Tap, MD

New York, NY

Mac Tichenor

Dallas, TX

Daniel Von Hoff, MD, F.A.C.P.

Scottsdale, AZ

Jinghui Zhang, PhD

Memphis, TN

Chand Khanna, DVM, PhD

Washington DC

Meet our staff

Chelsey Blanks

Executive Assistant

Dallas, TX

Vivian Laws

Development Manager

Dallas, TX

Director

Lee Helman, MD

Advisory Board Chair

Chand Khanna, DVM, PhD

President

Mac Tichenor

Senior Advisor

Michael Brown, MD

Strategic advisory board

Chand Khanna, DVM, PhD, ex officio

Lee Helman, MD, ex officio

Mac Tichenor, ex officio

Bret Alexander, Committee Chair

Mary Katherine Clarke

Richard Gorlick, MD, Committee Chair

Sung Poblete, RN, PhD

Bill Tap, MD

Dan Von Hoff, MD

Jim Amatruda, MD, PhD

Katherine Janeway, MD, Committee Chair

Cigall Kadoch, PhD

Bob Mennel, MD

Melinda Merchant, MD, PhD

Bob Schreiber, PhD

Jinghui Zhang, PhD

Trustees

Bret Alexander

Mary Katherine Clarke

Mac Tichenor

Lee J. Helman, M.D.

Director

Professional affiliation

Dr. Helman has been studying the biology and caring for pediatric patients with sarcomas for over thirty years. He has also trained many investigators in the field of pediatric sarcomas. He spent 30 years at the NCI in various leadership positions, and recently spent 3 years at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles as head of research in the Cancer and Blood Disease Institute, where he remains an adjunct professor. He is currently focusing on improving outcomes in osteosarcoma.

Why I’m Here

Current therapy for patients with osteosarcoma has not improved over the past 30 years. I believe that with our improved understanding of the genetic drivers of this disease, we have an unprecedented opportunity to make significant progress in treating patients using this information. I also believe we have the opportunity to engage the immune system to help us develop new approaches for treatment. And I believe the OSI can help accelerate our progress in making this a reality.

Michael Brown, MD

Strategic Advisory Board, Member

Professional affiliation

Dr. Brown is Regental Professor of Molecular Genetics and Director of the Jonsson Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. He received the 1985 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discoveries concerning the regulation of cholesterol. He shared the prize with his longtime scientific partner, Joseph Goldstein. The two also shared the US National Medal of Science in 1987.

Why I’m Here

Trained as a physician, I have a deep appreciation for the power of scientists to elucidate the causes of disease and to invent therapies that alleviate suffering and extend life. While certain diseases are the subject of intense study, others are overlooked. The QuadW Foundation, through its creation of the Osteosarcoma Institute, aims to correct that imbalance by marshalling resources to combat osteosarcoma, a devastating form of cancer that primarily affects young people. I hope to aid this effort in any way that I can.

Bret Alexander

Strategic Advisory Board, Member, Trustee

Professional affiliation

Bret is an experienced management consultant at EY in their Digital and Customer Experience practice. He is focused on fueling growth and efficiencies in some of the world’s largest companies by building digital customer experiences and leading large-scale transformations.

Why I’m Here

I’m passionate about curing osteosarcoma after losing my best friend to the disease in 2006. Since that time, I’ve served as an Advisory Director for the WWWW Foundation (QuadW), which has funded millions in osteosarcoma research infrastructure and young investigator development grants.

I hope to use the experience I’ve developed in understanding the priorities and opportunities in curing osteosarcoma to facilitate the connection of thought leadership and funding that will bring new treatments to osteosarcoma patients.

Jim Amatruda, MD, PhD

Strategic Advisory Board, Member

Professional affiliation

James F. Amatruda, MD, PhD is Endowed Chair of Sarcoma Research in the Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases and the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplantation at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; and Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Jim was educated at Harvard University and received his MD and PhD degrees from Washington University, before doing an Internal Medicine Residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He completed a Medical Oncology fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Massachusetts General Hospital and postdoctoral work at Boston Children’s Hospital. From 2005-2019, he was on the faculty of UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. Jim specializes in research and treatment of children’s cancers, with a special focus on germ cell tumors, sarcomas and Wilms tumor of the kidney. His lab uses a variety of approaches including genomic studies and genetic models including mice and zebrafish. He is also Chair of the Rare Tumors Biology Committee in the Children’s Oncology Group, the national organization that coordinates clinical trials for children with cancer.

Why I’m Here

As a physician-scientist, I have the privilege of working directly with patients and families. This is always a powerful reminder of how important it is to keep pushing forward with research to find better treatments and ultimately a cure for osteosarcoma and other cancers. By serving to connect patients and advocates with caregivers and researchers, I believe the OSI is positioned to transform the understanding and treatment of osteosarcoma. I am delighted to serve on the SAB and to help with this very important effort.

Mary Katherine Clarke

Institute Executive Board, Member, Trustee

Professional affiliation

With a background in law, Mary Katherine is trained in contract work, nonprofit management, development, and consulting with experience at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She is currently focused on raising her two young daughters and supporting the furtherance of osteosarcoma research.

Why I’m Here

My oldest friend lost his battle to osteosarcoma when we were in college. Ever since, I have been a dedicated member and Director of the Advisory Board of the WWWW (QuadW) Foundation. QuadW has contributed millions of dollars in funding for research infrastructure and new talent in the field of sarcoma. Through this work, QuadW has developed the relationships that led to the creation of the Osteosarcoma Institute.

Cigall Kadoch, PhD

Strategic Advisory Board, Member

Professional affiliation

Cigall Kadoch, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Biology at Harvard Medical School, and Institute Member and Epigenomics Program Co-Director at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

She established her independent laboratory in 2014 immediately following completion of her Ph.D. studies in Cancer Biology at Stanford University working with developmental biologist Gerald Crabtree. She is a leading expert in chromatin and gene regulation and is internationally recognized for her team’s ground-breaking studies in these areas. Specifically, her laboratory studies the structure and function of chromatin remodeling complexes such as the mammalian SWI/SNF (or BAF) complex, with emphasis on defining the mechanisms underlying cancer-specific perturbations. Of note, the recent surge in exome- and genome-wide sequencing efforts has unmasked the major, previously unappreciated contribution of these regulators to malignancy: genes encoding BAF complex subunits are mutated in in over 25% of human cancers, including some cancer types such as synovial sarcoma, malignant rhabdoid tumor, and others which are uniformly characterized by BAF complex perturbation.

Why I’m Here

I am committed to enabling translation of basic discoveries in to meaningful therapeutic opportunities. I hope to leverage our research team’s experiences in the settings of synovial sarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, rhabdoid tumor, epitheliod sarcoma, and others in the design of mechanistic and pre-clinical studies as well as screening approaches in osteosarcoma.

Richard Gorlick, MD

Institute Executive Board, Member

Professional affiliation

Richard Gorlick is the Interim Chair, Sarcoma Department, Division of Cancer Medicine, Division Head, Department Chair, Mosbacher Pediatrics Chair, and Professor of Pediatrics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. He is a practicing pediatric oncologist who cares for patients with sarcoma and is the principal investigator of a laboratory devoted to translational research focused on osteosarcoma. Dr. Gorlick’s laboratory is a member of the National Cancer Institute funded Pediatric Preclinical Testing Consortium.

Why I’m Here

My entire professional career has been devoted to improving our biological understanding of osteosarcoma and through that, trying to improve the outcome of patients with this disease. My independent laboratory effort began in 1998 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and since its inception has been almost entirely devoted to osteosarcoma research. My laboratory was involved in the initiation of osteosarcoma tumor banking by COG and has maintained its focus through my transition to the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and in December 2016 the move to The University of Texas MD Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital. As Chair of the COG Bone Tumor Disease Committee and as a member of the Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration Clinical Trials Committee, I have helped shape clinical trials priorities. I have always been a physician who has provided care for patients with sarcomas, particularly osteosarcoma. I was involved in the first meeting of WWWW Foundation, Inc. (QuadW), conducted under the auspices of the American Association for Cancer Research in which the decision was made to annotate the COG osteosarcoma bank, creating the highly effective QuadW biostatistical office. I have sincerely appreciated the extensive funding of infrastructure and Young Investigator grants provided by QuadW, and I am honored to be involved in the Osteosarcoma Institute. I will share my knowledge base and experience to help advance our aligned cause in an effort to improve survival and outcomes of patients with osteosarcoma.

Katherine Janeway, MD

Strategic Advisory Board, Member

Professional affiliation

Katherine Janeway, MD, MMSc is a pediatric oncologist at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. Her clinical title is Senior Physician, she is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Harvard Medical School and Director of Clinical Genomics at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She is an expert in caring for children, adolescents and young adults with sarcomas. Dr. Janeway’s research is focused on genomics, precision oncology and bone sarcomas. She leads clinical trials in osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma both as an independent investigator and as the Chair of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Bone Tumor Committee.

Why I’m Here

Every day, I am reminded just how important excellent cancer care and a commitment to cancer research are. Many of those affected by osteosarcoma, whom I have been fortunate to care for, are alive today because the researchers and clinicians before me established our current high standards of care. But still too often, our standard approach does not work, and we do not win the fight. Moreover, our current standard for osteosarcoma treatment can have lifelong, secondary effects. Too many with osteosarcoma face a difficult and uncertain road, and there is still so much work to be done. That is why I do this work. I find is solace and deep satisfaction in working with parents, patients, advocates, and other clinician-investigators striving to better understand osteosarcoma in order to make progress in conquering the disease.

Robert G. Mennel, MD

Strategic Advisory Board Member, Trustee

Professional affiliation

Bob is a practicing medical oncologist who has a special interest in sarcoma. I am also Director of the Division of Molecular Medicine and Molecular Pathology at Baylor University Medical Center.

Why I’m Here

I took care of Willie Tichenor during his battle with osteosarcoma. I have been involved with the QuadW Foundation since its inception, initially as the medical advisor and then as a board member. I believe fervently and passionately in their goal to develop better treatments for patients with osteosarcoma. I believe in using the best science to solve a problem. We are in a period of an explosion of scientific information. I am convinced that a group such as the Osteosarcoma Institute can and must facilitate cooperation between investigators, Pharma, physicians, and payers to improve the therapy for our patients with osteosarcoma. I am excited to be a member of the Osteosarcoma Institute.

Melinda Merchant, MD, PhD

Strategic Advisory Board, Member

Professional affiliation

Melinda Merchant, MD, PhD, is a VP of Early Stage Development at Epizyme leading Translational Medicine and Early Clinical Development. A board-certified Pediatric Hematologist & Oncologist with a PhD in Immunology, Dr. Merchant held previous physician-scientist positions at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center with a focus on sarcomas and immunotherapy. Since her move to pharma in 2015, Melinda has been highly active in early clinical development at the transition from laboratory to early phase clinical trials, directing clinical development of multiple first time in human studies, and leading a growing team of scientists and physician scientists.

Why I’m Here

As I think back on years of treating patients with osteosarcoma, many memories and celebrations of children, adolescents, and young adults come quickly to mind. Their challenges first attracted me to ask questions in the translational space and continue to provide a patient-first mentality as I work in drug development. It is clear to me that forward momentum in the field will take teamwork and leadership across multiple levels of expertise/engagement. I am hopeful that OSI initiatives will help improve the pace and scope of osteosarcoma treatment.

Sung Poblete, PhD, RN

Strategic Advisory Board, Member

Professional affiliation

Sung is president and chief executive officer of Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), a groundbreaking movement that raises funds to accelerate the pace of translational cancer research and gets new therapies to patients quickly to save lives now. SU2C facilitates collaboration among the best and brightest in the cancer community funding scientists from different institutions who work together on Dream Teams; it also galvanizes the entertainment industry’s resources to generate awareness and build broad public support for cancer research.

Why I’m Here

I have made it my life’s work to fight cancer from all angles: galvanizing awareness, improving patient outcomes, and enabling cutting-edge research. I am honored to join forces and galvanize the collective strengths of the OSI IEB and SAB members to accelerate the pace of osteosarcoma cancer research for benefit of patients today.

Robert D. Schreiber, PhD

Strategic Advisory Board, Member

Professional affiliation

Robert Schreiber is the Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky Distinguished Professor; the Interim Head, Division of Immunobiology, Department of Pathology and Immunology, Director of The Bursky Center for Human Immunology and Immunotherapy Programs and co-Leader of the tumor immunology program at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University in St Louis, School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Schreiber received both his B.A. and Ph.D. in biochemistry/immunology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his postdoctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and remained there as a faculty member until 1985 when he was recruited to Washington University in St. Louis. Schreiber co-led/led the immunology training program from 1985-2003 and then took over directing the NCI T32 funded program in Cancer Biology and has led that program for 18 years. Dr. Schreiber’s research focuses on elucidating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying natural and therapeutically induced immune responses to developing and established cancers.

Why I’m Here

I am delighted to be a part of the OSI board. My research is in the area of promoting therapeutic immunity to sarcoma and it is exciting to be able to interact with such dedicated and accomplished individuals on the OSI board. I firmly believe that immunotherapy has a place in sarcoma treatment. I hope that current research on this issue together with the interactions that are now occurring among the OSI board members will be translated into novel and more effective sarcoma therapies.

Mac Tichenor

Institute Executive Board, Chair

Professional affiliation

President – Tichenor Ventures, LLC., an investor in early-stage biotechnology companies
Executive Director – WWWW Foundation (QuadW) www.quadw.org

Why I’m Here

Our younger son, Willie, died from osteosarcoma in 2006, after a three year battle with the disease. That led to the creation of QuadW, which has the funding of sarcoma research as a fundamental, but not exclusive, focus. Over QuadW’s first ten years, we helped support the field through many important accomplishments, but they did not include the development of new treatments that would have helped Willie. This fact, coupled with advice from leaders in cancer and medical science generally, led us to the creation of this purpose-built and driven Institute, with the single goal of bringing effective new therapies to the clinic.

Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD, F.A.C.P.

Strategic Advisory Board, Member

Professional affiliation

Dr. Von Hoff is currently Physician in Chief, Distinguished Professor Translational Research at TGen (Translational Genomics Research Institute) in Phoenix, Arizona. He is also Senior Consultant, Clinical Investigations for the City of Hope; Chief Scientific Officer for HonorHealth Research Institute; Medical Director of Research, Chief Scientific Officer, US Oncology, and Professor of Medicine, Mayo Clinic.

Why I’m Here

My major interest is in the development of new anticancer agents, both in the clinic and in the laboratory. My colleagues and I were involved in the beginning of the development of many of the agents we now use routinely, including: mitoxantrone, fludarabine, paclitaxel, docetaxel, gemcitabine, irinotecan, nelarabine, capecitabine, lapatinib, vismodegib, nab-paclitaxel, nal-IRI, and others. At present, we are concentrating on the development of molecularly targeted therapies for patients with pancreatic and other advanced cancers.

Jinghui Zhang, PHD

Strategic Advisory Board, Member

Professional affiliation

Jinghui Zhang, Ph.D., is Chair of the Department of Computational Biology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. She holds the St. Jude Endowed Chair in Bioinformatics. Dr. Zhang received her undergraduate degree from Fu Dan University in Shanghai and her doctorate from the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Conn.
Zhang joined St. Jude in 2010, leading the effort to analyze genomic data generated by the St. Jude–Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project (PCGP) to define the landscapes of >20 subtypes of pediatric cancer including osteosarcoma. Her PCGP work has led to new directions in research involving high-risk leukemia, brain and solid tumors while innovative analysis and visualization tools developed in her lab have been adopted by researchers worldwide. She led the first pan-cancer analysis of the Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatment (TARGET) initiative of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) which has unveiled striking difference in the genomic landscape of pediatric versus adult cancer. She sees the importance of sharing data gained from her collaboration with other pediatric cancer research institutes and has developed St Jude Cloud platform for pediatric cancer genome data sharing.

Why I’m Here

I have been studying the genomics of osteosarcoma since 2012 uncovering the genomic complexity (2014) as well as evolution trajectory during metastasis (2019). OSI brings an opportunity to interact with both the patient community and research teams which will accelerate the progress of translating the research findings to therapy. I am particularly interested in connecting with my colleagues in research and clinical care so that we can explore adopting innovative technologies that can lead to improved outcome of high-risk/metastatic osteosarcoma.

Chand Khanna, DVM, PhD

Strategic Advisory Board, Chair

Professional affiliation

Chand is Chief Science Officer with Ethos Veterinary Health, and President of Ethos Discovery(501c3), its incubator of scientific innovation. His responsibility at Ethos Discovery is to develop innovations in the form of novel diagnostics and therapeutics for both human and animal patients afflicted with similar complex disease conditions (i.e., osteosarcoma; so called Comparative Oncology). Chand is a veterinary oncologist and both osteosarcoma and metastasis biologist, who has worked in this scientific field for over 20 years, most notably as a senior investigator of the Tumor and Metastasis Biology section of the Pediatric Oncology Branch at the National Cancer Institute and founding Director of its Comparative Oncology Program. Chand’s research career has focused on improving the understanding of the biology of metastasis in osteosarcoma and the use of a cross species (mouse, dog, human), Comparative and translational approach to develop novel therapeutics for osteosarcoma metastasis.

Why I’m Here

Starting during my PhD, continuing through my entire research career at the NIH, and continuing in my current role at Ethos Discovery, I have focused on the problem of metastasis in osteosarcoma and the use of a Comparative approach to develop novel therapeutics for this problem.

Through my work as the Osteosarcoma Biology Chair within the Children’s Oncology Group, I became familiar with the Tichenor family, the QuadW foundation and its board members. Through my responsibilities in the COG, I directed a QuadW sponsored office that was responsible for the management of the COG osteosarcoma biospecimen repository and the work to provide clinical annotation for nearly 100% of the patient samples in this biospecimen repository.

Chelsey Blanks

Institute Executive Board, Member

Get to know our Executive Assistant

As the Osteosarcoma Institute Executive Assistant, Chelsey schedules meetings for the board and the committees, oversees various operational aspects of the organization, and manages the Osteosarcoma Hotline that offers expert advice for osteosarcoma patients and families. Although Chelsey is Texan through and through, she spent six years living in Southern California and was thrilled to return to the homeland at the end of 2019. Chelsey obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of North Texas, where she studied Sociology, Philosophy, and Dance. Previously she had an insurance and financial services career and was also an Executive Assistant for her church in California.

Why I’m Here

I was first exposed to pediatric cancer when I was a Unit Secretary at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. During my short time there, the experience truly opened my eyes to these terrible diseases and how they affect not only the patient, but the entire family and community. When I heard Willie Tichenor’s story (the genesis for the QuadW Foundation and an inspiration for the OSI), it touched my heart. I was inspired by how this group of family and friends wanted to make a dramatic difference for current and future osteosarcoma patients. Working with the OSI is truly rewarding, and I am so excited to see the advancements that we make for patients!

Vivian Laws

Institute Executive Board (IEB) Member

Get to know our Development Manager

As the Osteosarcoma Institute’s Development Manager, Vivian leads fundraising and development efforts for the OSI and enjoys sharing the mission of the Osteosarcoma Institute with current and future supporters. Born and raised in Memphis, Vivian is a native Tennessean and is excited to now call Dallas home with her dogs Jude and Lucy. Vivian obtained her BA in Communication Studies from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and recently graduated with a Masters in Public Policy and Nonprofit Administration and a Graduate Certificate in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership from the University of Memphis.

Why I’m Here

My personal dedication to expanding treatment options and increasing survival rates for osteosarcoma began early, when I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at the age of 13. Since the day of my diagnosis, I have known that it would be my life’s mission to make a positive impact in the fight against osteosarcoma. Now 11 years into my remission, I am able to raise awareness and funds to support new research and clinical trials for osteosarcoma through my work as the Development Manager of the OSI. Knowing that I am working with an incredible organization to increase survival rates and ultimately find a cure for osteosarcoma is a career path that is both fulfilling and empowering.