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Southwest Oncology Group Leadership
Members of the Southwest Oncology Group are top medical researchers at institutions across the United States. In addition to Group Chair Laurence H. Baker, D.O., the Group leadership includes:
Group Chair Laurence H. Baker, D.O.
 Laurence H. Baker, D.O., became chairman during the Spring 2005 Southwest Oncology Group Meeting in Denver. Dr. Baker joined the Southwest Oncology Group in 1979 and served in several capacities through the years, including chairman of the Intergroup Sarcoma Committee and associate Group chairman. Upon accepting the chairmanship, Dr. Baker established the Group Headquarters Office at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he is a professor of Internal Medicine and Pharmacology.
Dr. Baker received his osteopathy degree from the University of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1966. He completed his oncology fellowship at Wayne State University in Detroit, then joined the faculty there in 1972. He was director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology from 1982-1992. In 1987, he accepted the directorship of the Meyer L. Prentis Comprehensive Cancer Center of Metropolitan Detroit. In 1994, Dr. Baker joined the University of Michigan where he served as professor of medicine and associate chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Internal Medicine. He also served as deputy director and director for clinical research for the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Dr. Baker's special interests include sarcoma research and new drug development. He has authored nearly 200 publications, 47 books or book chapters and 127 abstracts.
Deputy Group Chair Richard I. Fisher, M.D.
 Richard I. Fisher, M.D., works closely with Group Chair Laurence H. Baker, D.O., and heads the Group's Scientific Advisory Board, a group of internal and external advisors to the Group's leadership. Dr. Fisher has been active in the Southwest Oncology Group for 20 years. He has been Chair of the Lymphoma Committee since 1988 and Vice Chair of the Lymphoma Translational Medicine Subcommittee since 1993. In addition, he serves as a member of the Group's Board of Governors and the Translational Medicine Committee.
In addition, Dr. Fisher is Director of the University of Rochester Medical Center's James P. Wilmot Cancer Center and Director of Cancer Services for Strong Health. He is Chief of the Hematology/Oncology Unit in the Department of Medicine and is the Samuel E. Durand Professor of Medicine. He joined the University of Rochester in 2001, after serving as Director of the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center at Loyola University's Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago, where he worked from 1984 to 2001. While there, Dr. Fisher was instrumental in the creation of the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center and worked to build a program supported by the National Cancer Institute.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, he completed an internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. He held an oncology fellowship and worked as a senior investigator at the NCI from 1972 to 1984.
Associate Chair for Cancer Control and Prevention Frank L. Meyskens, Jr., M.D.
 Frank L. Meyskens, Jr., M.D., was appointed Associate Chair for Cancer Control and Prevention by Group Chair Laurence H. Baker, D.O., in September 2007. Dr. Meyskens is Director of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California Irvine Medical Center, where he is also Associate Vice Chancellor of Health Sciences. For more than two decades, he has led innovative chemoprevention trials and established cancer prevention research programs at several institutions. He was the founding chair of the Committee on Control and Prevention at the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG). He has championed research in prevention and control in leadership posts at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Association of Cancer Research, and the National Cancer Institute.
In his new position with SWOG, Dr. Meyskens will shape forward-looking initiatives that build on the lessons of past chemoprevention and cancer control studies and push for answers to come of the field's puzzling questions – a topic that he has written about extensively. As associate chair, Dr. Meyskens will build on the Group's past track record in initiating important cancer control and prevention trials, working closely with the NCI's Community Clinical Oncology Program network.
The other aspect of his new post is cancer control, including genetic and environmental factors and special populations, as well as quality of life and symptom control in the treatment setting.
Executive Officers
The Southwest Oncology Group has four executive officers. Their duties are to facilitate and oversee the development of clinical trials according to their specific area of responsibility, act as liaisons for the Group to the National Cancer Institute and report to the Group Chair Laurence H. Baker, D.O., the direction and progress of the Group's scientific endeavors under their purview. Like Dr. Baker, the executive officers are associated with the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Harry P. Erba, M.D., Ph.D.
 Harry P. Erba, M.D., Ph.D., is associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. In his role as one of the Group's three executive officers, he works with the lymphoma, leukemia and myeloma committees to develop clinical trials and offer advice to study coordinators as needed. In addition, Dr. Erba is a member of the Leukemia Committee and the Group's Board of Governors.
Dr. Erba received his bachelor's degree in biology from Yale University and his medical and doctoral degrees in biophysics from Stanford University. He completed his residency training in internal medicine and a fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. In 1993, Dr. Erba was appointed instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and has held assistant and associate physician appointments with the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University Health Services. He serves on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Practice Guidelines Committees for acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, and chronic myeloid leukemia. He has been a faculty member at the University of Michigan since 1996 and his clinical and research interests include acute/chronic leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes and other malignant blood diseases.
Carolyn J. Hoban, D.Sc.
 Carolyn J. Hoban, D.Sc., is an assistant professor of research in internal medicine at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. She joined the Southwest Oncology Group in November 2006 as an executive officer and oversees the development of the Group's protocols in translational medicine and cancer control. She also supervises activities that involve the Group's tumor and tissue banks. Dr. Hoban is a member of the Translational Medicine and Cancer Control Research committees, as well as the Board of Governors. Dr. Hoban works with the Translational Medicine Committee to bridge the flow of scientific knowledge between laboratory research and the Group's clinical trials. She also works to increase opportunities to develop targeted agents based on scientific knowledge learned from clinical investigation.
Dr. Hoban received her Bachelor of Science Degree from Tufts University, and her Master of Science Degree and Doctor of Science Degree from the Harvard University School of Public Health. She completed postdoctoral training at the MIT Center for Cancer Research. Dr. Hoban has more than 10 years' experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in basic research and development, and in pharmacogenomics. Her personal research interests focus on understanding the microenvironment in which primary bone cancer develops, compared to how cancer cells from other areas of the body metastasize to the bone. Her personal goal is to better understand tumor biology so that targeted agents that intervene in the process of cancer growth can be developed to test in therapeutic trials.
Bruce G. Redman, D.O.
 Bruce G. Redman, D.O., is professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich. As one of three executive officers in Southwest Oncology Group, Dr. Redman provides oversight for gastrointestinal, genitourinary, immunomolecular therapeutics and melanoma studies. He also is a member of the Group's Melanoma Committee and the Board of Governors.
Dr. Redman received his osteopathy degree in 1981 from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he also completed his training in internal medicine. He completed his fellowship in medical oncology at Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1987. From 1987 to 1997, he was a faculty member in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Wayne State University, where he served as the program director of the Oncology Fellowship Training Program.
In 1997, Dr. Redman joined the faculty of the University of Michigan and has since been appointed co-director of the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Program. His primary interest is in immunotherapeutic approaches to the treatment of cancer, especially as they apply to melanoma and kidney cancer. Dr. Redman is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and several book chapters.
Anne F. Schott, M.D.
 Anne Schott, M.D., is assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Mich. One of three executive officers for Southwest Oncology Group, Dr. Schott monitors the protocol development activities of the breast cancer, early therapeutics, lung, head and neck, and special populations committees. She is a member of the Group's Board of Governors, Breast Cancer Committee, and Breast Translational Medicine Subcommittee.
Dr. Schott is a medical oncologist with a clinical emphasis on breast cancer. A Southerner at heart, Dr. Schott completed her undergraduate training at the University of South Alabama in Mobile in 1986. She remained at South Alabama for her medical school training, then completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
After a year in private practice, Dr. Schott came to the University of Michigan through the medical oncology fellowship program in 1993. She joined the faculty in 1996. Her primary research interest is in therapeutic and translational clinical trials, especially as they apply to breast cancer.
Group Statistician John J. Crowley, Ph.D.
 John J. Crowley, Ph.D., is the director of the Southwest Oncology Group Statistical Center in Seattle, Wash. Dr. Crowley has served as the Group's statistician since its relocation from Houston to Seattle in 1984. Dr. Crowley heads a staff of nearly 110 statisticians, data coordinators and other professionals who manage large-scale clinical trials. He and his team develop Web-based electronic data-capture software. Beginning in 2006, data management for all of the Group's therapeutic trials will be conducted online. The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) is also electronically conducted and has one of the highest percentages of minority participants ever enrolled in a cancer prevention trial.
With personal research interests focused in lung cancer and multiple myeloma, Dr. Crowley was among the first in the country to develop analytical methods for microarray-based genomic data which he links to clinical research findings. Dr. Crowley served on the faculties of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Washington. He also headed the Biostatistics Program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center from 1983-1993 and is currently on the faculty there. In 1997, Dr. Crowley founded Cancer Research And Biostatistics (CRAB), a non-profit organization that designs, manages and analyzes cancer clinical trials. He has written more than 225 professional papers and books.
Chair Emeritus Charles A. Coltman, M.D.
 Charles A. Coltman Jr., M.D., is Chairman Emeritus of the Southwest Oncology Group. He is an internal medicine specialist with subspecialties in hematology and medical oncology. He joined the Group at its earliest beginnings in 1964. Prior to his election as Chairman of the Group in 1981, Dr. Coltman served as Chairman of the Lymphoma Committee (1966-1977) and the Leukemia Committee (1977-1981).
After leading the Group for twenty-four years, Dr. Coltman passed the gavel to Laurence H. Baker, D.O., on April 8, 2005. Dr. Coltman was appointed Associate Chair of Cancer Control and Prevention at that time and served in that capacity until September 2007 when he was named Chairman Emeritus of the Southwest Oncology Group.
"SWOG is most proud of the accomplishment in completing accrual of two pivotal studies in preventing prostate cancer and looks forward to the important new scientific discoveries that will be made from continued analysis of those trials. To be clear, our efforts in cancer chemoprevention are a reflection of the leadership of Dr. Coltman in concert with the leadership of the Division of Cancer Prevention of the National Cancer Institute," says Group Chairman Dr. Laurence H. Baker. During Dr. Coltman's 24 years as chairman, the Group grew to be one of the largest of NCI-supported cancer clinical trial cooperative groups in the United States.
Outside the Group, Dr. Coltman is president emeritus of the Cancer Therapy and Research Center (CTRC) in San Antonio. For 28 years he actively served as CTRC's medical director, chairman, and chief executive officer. In 1978, Dr. Coltman started the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium which has become an internationally acclaimed program attracting thousands of clinicians and scientists from all over the world. In 2004 the program name was changed to The Charles A. Coltman, Jr. San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in recognition of his contributions to breast cancer research.
Dr. Coltman is also Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. His list of publications is extensive and he is the recipient of many prestigious awards including Association of Community Cancer Centers Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Research Award, the Gibson D. Lewis Award for Excellence in Cancer Control from the Texas Cancer Council, and was the ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award Lecturer for 2001.
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