The Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation congratulates Dr. Raffit Hassan of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on receiving the prestigious Wagner Award at this year’s International Mesothelioma Interest Group’s (iMig) meeting.
Raffit Hassan, MD, is an Investigator and Chief of the Solid Tumor Immunotherapy Section in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Hassan is a medical oncologist whose laboratory and clinical research is focused on developing novel therapies for the treatment of mesothelioma. His work and collaborations have shown that mesothelin, a tumor antigen that was discovered at the NCI, is a useful target for tumor-specific therapy of malignant mesothelioma. His group is presently conducting clinical trials of three different agents targeting mesothelin namely, SS1P, an anti-mesothelin immunotoxin, MORAb-009, a chimeric anti-mesothelin monoclonal antibody, and CRS-207, a mesothelin tumor vaccine.
Dr. Hassan served on the Meso Foundation’s Science Advisory Board for nearly a decade and for three years was the chair of the board. The Meso Foundation is grateful for all of his contributions to the field of mesothelioma.
The Wagner Award is named after J. Christopher Wagner, who was a leader in the field of mesothelioma by making major contributions to the understanding of mesothelioma, its cause and the goals for prevention. Wagner was the first to establish the connection between mesothelioma and asbestos.The Wagner award is presented every two years to an individual who has made major original contributions to the understanding of mesothelioma, either in basic or applied research.
Previous recipients include Drs. Joseph Testa, Stephen Albelda, Brooke Mossman, Harvey Pass, Bruce Robinson, and Marie-Claude Jaurand.
This year’s award was presented to Dr. Hassan by Dr. Steven Mutsaers.
