In 2023, Jeffrey S. Weber was named a Fellow of the Academy of Immuno-Oncology, an honor established by the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy.
Weber passed away on August 18, 2024 (The Cancer Letter, September 6, 2024).
After receiving the honor from SITC, Weber reflected on his career to the public.
He discussed what advice he would give his younger self. These include “never lose your cool,” be grateful for the sacrifices your family has made, and write poems about yourself in scientific literature.
Weber also points out the importance of mentorship, citing the turning point in his career as an encounter with oncology pioneers Jim Darnell, Cy Leventhal, Steven Rosenberg, and Peter Jones. I came and shared.
But Weber admitted that early career success has become harder to come by.
I think an important turning point for me has to do with meeting different mentors. So this emphasizes the importance of the leader, or, colloquially, the rabbi. Not in a religious sense, but in a professional sense, in my professional life.
“I think it’s become more obvious today that we have to bring these people together. Today, it’s much harder to build a career as a translational physician-scientist or basic scientist. “We are working hard,” Weber said. “It is now critical that we put effort and resources into advancing the careers of young faculty.”
Of course, wisdom comes with time, but first of all, I would like to say that you should never lose your cool when it comes to the level of trivial behavior. I think that’s very important for doctors, but it’s important for everyone.
For Weber, induction as a Fellow of the Academy of Immuno-Oncology meant more than just an award.
“Being a Fellow of the Academy of Tumor and Immunology means I have the respect of my colleagues and peers, and that means more to me than any other honor,” Weber said. said.
A video and transcript of this interview with Weber is available at the Cancer History Project.
Interview with 2023 FAIO Hall of Fame Inductee Jeffrey S. Weber
Cancer Immunotherapy Society, October 4, 2024
The Immuno-Oncology Academy of Immuno-Oncology recognizes the individuals who launched the field of cancer immunotherapy into today’s breakthrough cancer treatments and brings together the brightest minds in the field to advance SITC. It was established by the Cancer Immunotherapy Society with the aim of continuing. field, and the next generation of immuno-oncologists.
Each year, SITC conducts an open recruitment process to induct a new class of fellows into the Academy of Immunology and Tumors, one of the society’s highest honors. (Current nominating committee members or board members are not eligible for nomination.) Fellows of the Academy of Immuno-Oncology carry the designation “FAIO.”
Professor Weber, then Deputy Director of the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center (PCC), worked with a multidisciplinary team of medical and surgical oncologists, dermatologists, and pathologists to treat the most common He has treated patients from the earliest lesions to the most complex melanomas. He serves as co-director of PCC’s Melanoma Research Program and is director of PCC’s Experimental Therapeutics Division, overseeing research into early development treatments.
Professor Weber’s clinical and research interests were primarily in the field of cancer immunotherapy. He worked at the forefront of new ideas in immunotherapy to treat melanoma patients and manage the side effects of these new treatments. He contributed to the development of ipilimumab for melanoma, published some of the early papers demonstrating its efficacy, was an early proponent of the use of checkpoint inhibition as an adjuvant treatment, and was published in the New England Journal of It culminated in a publication in Medicine magazine. For resected high-risk melanoma, the PD-1 antibody nivolumab is beneficial compared with ipilimumab. He has also been involved in a wide variety of clinical trials, including melanoma vaccine trials, protocols involving adoptive cell therapy, and trials of new immunotherapies for melanoma patients.
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