Organizing Committee
Kenneth V. Honn, PhD
Kenneth V. Honn,
PhD, is a Distinguished Professor at Wayne State University within the School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology, as well as being an adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemistry. In addition to being the author of over 200 published works, Honn also heads the Cancer Biology Division in the Gershenson Radiation Oncology Center at Harper Hospital and is a member of the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute. Additionally, he is a member of Board of Directors of the Eicosanoid Research Foundation and The Fund for Cancer Research, and is the chairman of the International Conference on Bioactive Lipids in Cancer, Inflammation and Related Diseases.
As a 30-year dedicated cancer researcher, Dr. Honn’s personal aim is to eventually eradicate prostate cancer, but he understands that long-term goal is far from being achieved. Among men in the United States, prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer, aside from skin cancer, and is the second leading cause, just behind lung cancer, of cancer-related death for men. Every three minutes another man is diagnosed with prostate cancer. Every 18 minutes a man dies from prostate cancer.
Though the journey may be lengthy in solving the complex riddle to what causes cancer, Dr. Honn’s innovative discoveries and methodologies have already been adapted by scientists the world over. Honn’s unique defiance of established dogma in the world of cancer research has allowed him and his group to discover several previously unimaginable traits about cancer cells and their relationship to eicosanoids, a large and diverse group of lipid molecules, including several that are active in preventing the spread of cancer.
The K. V. Honn Cancer & Metastasis Research Group’s laboratory research employs a multidisciplinary approach, utilizing molecular, biochemical, and cell biology methodologies. The group focuses on two major areas as they relate to tumor progression and the spread of cancer throughout the body. The first involves the examination of the role played by bioactive lipids in processes such as cancer cell motility and invasion, and the second focuses on adhesion receptors, in particular integrins, and their role in metastasis.
Research efforts in Dr. Honn’s laboratories have been directly responsible for six clinical trials, and members of his lab hold in aggregate 17 US patents, seven of which include generation of novel chemotherapeutic/radiation sensitizing compounds. Due to Dr. Honn’s translational research, a drug development program has identified a candidate lipoxygenase inhibitor, which is being readied for clinical trial.
The K. V. Honn Cancer & Metastasis Research Group will continue to build on these successes, pushing cancer research beyond the expected to make new discoveries and new tools that can be used in the struggle against prostate and other various cancers.
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Robert M. Mentzer, Jr., MD
Dr. Robert M. Mentzer, Jr. is the Dean of the Wayne State University School of Medicine. He also serves as Senior Advisor to the President for Medical Affairs and holds academic appointments as Professor of Surgery and Physiology. Dr. Mentzer is a nationally recognized cardiothoracic surgeon and medical school administrator with vast experience in medical education, research and clinical care. He is a national advocate for organ donation and has performed numerous heart transplant operations.
Dr. Mentzer received his baccalaureate degree from The College of William and Mary in 1967 and his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1971. He was a general surgery intern and resident at the University of Virginia Medical Center and completed a residency in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery there in 1980. He served as a thoracic surgeon with the rank of major in the U.S. Army Medical Center in Germany from 1980 to 1982.
Dr. Mentzer has held faculty appointments at the University of Virginia Medical Center, State University of New York at Buffalo, the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, and the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He was chief of the division of cardiothoracic surgery at the State University of New York at Buffalo from 1987 to 1991 and vice-chairman of the department of surgery there from 1987 to 1990. From 1990 to 1991, he was the interim chair of the department of surgery while holding appointments as a professor of surgery and a professor physiology. He joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine in 1991, where he was professor and chair of the division of cardiothoracic surgery and director of the cardiopulmonary transplant program. Dr. Mentzer became Chairman of the Department of Surgery of the University of Kentucky College Of Medicine in 1997. There he was named the Frank C. Spencer Endowed Chair in Surgery and held faculty appointments as Professor of Surgery and Physiology and was also the Director of the University of Kentucky Transplant Center.
Dr. Mentzer serves in many professional organizations, including the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the Halsted Society, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association, and at local, regional, and national levels of the American Heart Association. He was a member and Chairman of the Surgery and Bioengineering Study Section of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health and currently serves on the Myocardial Ischemia and Metabolism Study Section. Dr. Mentzer is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American College of Cardiology, and is a diplomat of the National Board of Medical Examiners.
Dr. Mentzer’s current research interests include thoracic organ transplantation, ischemia/reperfusion injury, myocardial protection, organ preservation, reducing perioperative morbidity and mortality after open-heart surgery. He has published extensively in scholarly journals and has been continuously funded by the NIH for the last 20 years. Dr. Mentzer has also been funded by the American Heart Association and industry, the latter the source of funding for clinical trials.
David Pieper, PhD
David Pieper presently serves in two capacities at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is Assistant Dean for Continuing Medical Education and Executive Director of the Southeast Michigan Center for Medical Education (SEMCME). SEMCME is a consortium of most of the teaching hospitals in Southeast Michigan and it is involved with planning programs for faculty and residents, helping to coordinate medical student rotations and coordinating “Project Medical Education” where Michigan legislators are invited to Detroit to receive information on medical education financing. SEMCME also has a research committee involving all of the research coordinators from Detroit area hospitals.
Dr. Pieper earned his Ph.D. from the
WSU School of Medicine in Physiology in 1978 and then did two years of Postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan before accepting a faculty position in the Biology Department at the University of Detroit. While there, he was the recipient of two
NSF grants in the field of reproductive neuroendocrinology. In 1985, David moved to Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan where he continued this research and also became more involved in residency education leadership, eventually moving up to Director of Medical Education and Research. During his thirteen years at Providence, Dr. Pieper was Chair of the IRB and IACUC for many years. In 1998, he moved to St. John Hospital in Detroit where he was Director of Biomedical Investigations. In addition to continuing his basic science research program during his time at Providence and St. John, Dr. Pieper participated in a wide range of clinical research and is author or co-author on many articles in well respected journals in a wide variety of fields such as Plastic Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Oncology, Nephrology and Asthma Research. During his time at Providence and St. John, Dr. Pieper also represented those hospitals on many OHEP (former name for SEMCME) Committees and was Chair of the OHEP Medical Education and Research Committees.
In 2000, David moved back to Wayne State, accepting the role of Assistant Dean for CME and two years ago added the additional responsibility for directing SEMCME.
Dr. Pieper has served on the Board of Directors of the Michigan Association of Medical Education, the Michigan Society for Medical Research, the Science and Engineering Fair of Metropolitan Detroit and the Society for Academic CME. He has been the Editor-in-Chief of the Alliance for CME Almanac and Society for Academic CME Intercom. He is a site surveyor for the Accreditation Council for CME (ACCME) and the Michigan State Medical Society (MSMS) and serves on the ACCME and MSMS CME Accreditation Review Committees. He is also Chair of the MSMS CME Program Planning Committee. He received the Alliance for CME President’s Award for 2005-2007.
Roberto Romero, MD
Dr. Roberto Romero, chief of the Perinatology Research Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/National Institutes of Health, also serves as professor of obstetrics and gynecology and molecular medicine and genetics at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Recently, Dr. Romero was elected to the Institute of Medicine. The IOM, established by the National Academies, is recognized as a major resource for independent, scientifically informed analysis and recommendations on issues related to human health. The Institute selects individuals who have made seminal contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health. Election is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of medicine and health.
The NIH Perinatology Research Branch, uniquely located on the
WSU campus, has made contributions to address the health care problems of the population of Detroit. Investigators at the PRB and
WSU apply methods at the forefront of science to improve pregnancy outcome to study health and disease.
Dr. Romero received his training at Yale University School of Medicine and joined the faculty there, where he remained for 16 years. In 1992, Dr. Romero became a professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Wayne State University School of Medicine and Chief of the Perinatology Research Branch of the NICHD/NIH.
Dr. Romero's work focuses on the prenatal diagnosis of congenital anomalies with ultrasound (three-dimensional and four-dimensional) and the prevention of preterm birth, which is the most important challenge to modern obstetrics, costing the country $26 billion per year. Work done at Wayne State University has established that subclinical infection is a major cause of premature birth, and that the human fetus plays a role in the initiation of labor. Moreover, this work has established that fetal infection/inflammation is a risk factor for neurologic handicap and cerebral palsy. Dr. Romero has developed new tests for the rapid detection of these subclinical infections and is now working on methods to reduce fetal brain injury.
Dr. Charles Serhan
Dr. Charles Serhan is the Simon Gelman Professor of Anaesthesia (Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology) and Director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Dr. Serhan's research focuses on acute inflammation and on the structural elucidation of pathways and compounds with protective mechanisms operating in humans that prevent injury of the body’s own tissue and promote resolution. He is the Director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston.
Dr. Serhan is the Simon Gelman Professor of Anesthesia (Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology) at Harvard Medical School, and is Professor in the Department of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity at Harvard School of Dental Medicine and an Affiliate Faculty Member of MIT. Dr. Serhan received degrees in Biochemistry from Stony Brook University (S.U.N.Y.), Experimental Pathology and Medical Sciences (New York University School of Medicine), as well as post-doctoral training in Physiological Chemistry at the Karolinska Institute Medical University (Stockholm, Sweden) with Prof. Bengt Samuelsson (1982 Nobel Laureate in Medicine). He was appointed to the Harvard Faculty in 1986 and has served as Senior Biochemist in Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital since 1992.
He has received a number of awards and honors. In July 2000, he received a MERIT Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences; an honorary degree in 1996 from Harvard University; a number of named-investigator awards, including The American Heart Established Investigatorship 1990-1995; and a prestigious Pew Scholar in the biomedical sciences in 1988. In April 2000, he received the distinction of being named the first “Endowed Distinguished Scientist” at BWH. Dr. Serhan received the MacArthur Research Service Award in 2003, and the Outstanding Scientist Award in Inflammation Research at the BioDefense-2004-Boston Meeting. He was the 2005 Kreshover Lecturer at NIH (NIDCR) and received the LSU Chancellor’s Award in Neuroscience in 2006 and the Dart/New York University Alumnus Biotechnology Achievement Award in 2007. Dr. Serhan has authored 346 publications.
