Dr. Clayton Smith Moves to UPCI From Vancouver
Dr. Clayton Smith Moves to UPCI From Vancouver
January 26, 2011 — Clayton A. Smith, MD, has recently been named director of the Hematologic Malignancies Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and director of Leukemia and Stem Cell Transplant Clinical Services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Cancer Centers, in Pennsylvania.
The internationally renowned hematology oncology expert moved there from the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Canada, where he was director of the Leukemia/Stem Cell Transplantation Program. He was also an associate professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
"We were honored when Dr. Smith agreed to join the UPCI team," Nancy E. Davidson, MD, director of the UPCI and UPMC Cancer Centers, said in a press release announcing his appointment. "Under Dr. Smith's leadership, we anticipate the Hematologic Malignancies Program, as well as our hematologic services, will play an even greater role in cancer research and cancer treatment. We are especially pleased that he will lead our efforts as part of our recently announced Mario Lemieux Foundation Center for Blood Diseases. The timing could not be better."
Dr. Smith is equally enthusiastic about his move to Pittsburgh.
"I think there is a tremendous opportunity here at Pittsburgh to really advance the kind and quality of care that we can give to people with blood cancers," he told Medscape Medical News in an interview. "Unfortunately, many of these cancers remain incurable, or else the treatments are very toxic. Trying to deliver safer and more effective care closer to people's homes, rather than in the hospital as is done now, is a really important goal for us."
Dr. Davidson's leadership was another enticing factor, he said.
"She is really special. Her leadership is definitely one of the things that attracted me. Our new division chief, Edward Chu, MD, from Yale, is also part of that fantastic leadership. I personally think leadership matters greatly," Dr. Smith said.
"So does compassion," he continued. "Humane and compassionate treatment and attention to the personal side of medical issues is very important to Nancy. I wanted to work at an institution where the human side of things is as important as the technology side. The best way to move things forward in cancer care is where there is a marriage of the 2."
Dr. Smith envisions a time, not too far away, when certain cancers will be treatable with pills or injections, and won't need months in hospital or the kinds of dramatic interventions that are currently necessary.
This has already happened with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), he said.
"Ten years ago, CML was treatable primarily by bone marrow transplant, but 1 out of 4 people died from the complications of treatment. We had this horrible conundrum. Much of the time the disease would be discovered while people were still pretty healthy, so the dilemma for the patient was: 'Do I have this traumatic bone marrow transplant that has a 1 in 4 chance of taking my life, or do I try to stick this out?' Then along came imatinib [Gleevec]. It keeps about 85% of people with CML in remission for many years. Now, only a tiny number need to go on to bone marrow transplant when that pill doesn't work."
Taking a pill to keep blood cancers at bay is not some pie-in-the-sky thing.
Imatinib has paved the way for other drugs that are available now as alternatives, Dr. Smith said. "What this tells me is that this dream of taking a pill to keep blood cancers at bay is not some pie-in-the-sky thing. It's going to happen, and we need to take the lessons learned from imatinib and apply them to our other hematologic cancers."
One is acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which is a particular focus of Dr. Smith's right now. "I'm firmly convinced that it's probably several hundred different diseases, and that we need to understand more about the particular AML that each individual person has and then tailor treatment to what that profile looks like," he said.
"With CML, everybody who comes in the door has a common genetic change that we can target. In AML, I think there are going to be hundreds of genetic changes. We will have to do a better job at identifying which one an individual has so that we can use the medicines that are right for that person, instead of lumping everybody together and giving them all the same thing," he said.
Hooked on Hematology
Dr. Smith was born in Texas, but his father was in the navy and, as a result, he lived "all over the world" as a boy. When it came time to go to college, he returned to Texas, where he received his BA in biology from Rice University in Houston and his MD from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He did his internship and residency in internal medicine at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, and then transferred to New York Hospital to complete his residency.
He became interested in hematology as a medical student. "I encountered some people with leukemia and started reading about this new bone marrow transplant stuff, which had started in the 1970s. I did my training in the early 80s," he recalled.
"Before transplant, there was nothing to do for these people because chemotherapy just wasn't working. There was a real need for something else; these people were suffering in front of your eyes and there was nothing you could do. This was frustrating and horrible. The possibility that you could be part of a field that was just beginning, where a lot of exciting things were going to happen, was irresistible. I actually transferred to New York City so I could work at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, which was one of the top centers at the time, and just got totally hooked."
Twenty-five years later, Dr. Smith is still hooked. "I'm continually challenged, intellectually and emotionally. Hematology oncology is an area in which you can really make a difference, and hopefully help make the world a better place."
|
|
| Dr. Clayton Smith |
January 26, 2011 — Clayton A. Smith, MD, has recently been named director of the Hematologic Malignancies Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and director of Leukemia and Stem Cell Transplant Clinical Services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Cancer Centers, in Pennsylvania.
The internationally renowned hematology oncology expert moved there from the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Canada, where he was director of the Leukemia/Stem Cell Transplantation Program. He was also an associate professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
"We were honored when Dr. Smith agreed to join the UPCI team," Nancy E. Davidson, MD, director of the UPCI and UPMC Cancer Centers, said in a press release announcing his appointment. "Under Dr. Smith's leadership, we anticipate the Hematologic Malignancies Program, as well as our hematologic services, will play an even greater role in cancer research and cancer treatment. We are especially pleased that he will lead our efforts as part of our recently announced Mario Lemieux Foundation Center for Blood Diseases. The timing could not be better."
Dr. Smith is equally enthusiastic about his move to Pittsburgh.
"I think there is a tremendous opportunity here at Pittsburgh to really advance the kind and quality of care that we can give to people with blood cancers," he told Medscape Medical News in an interview. "Unfortunately, many of these cancers remain incurable, or else the treatments are very toxic. Trying to deliver safer and more effective care closer to people's homes, rather than in the hospital as is done now, is a really important goal for us."
Dr. Davidson's leadership was another enticing factor, he said.
"She is really special. Her leadership is definitely one of the things that attracted me. Our new division chief, Edward Chu, MD, from Yale, is also part of that fantastic leadership. I personally think leadership matters greatly," Dr. Smith said.
"So does compassion," he continued. "Humane and compassionate treatment and attention to the personal side of medical issues is very important to Nancy. I wanted to work at an institution where the human side of things is as important as the technology side. The best way to move things forward in cancer care is where there is a marriage of the 2."
Dr. Smith envisions a time, not too far away, when certain cancers will be treatable with pills or injections, and won't need months in hospital or the kinds of dramatic interventions that are currently necessary.
This has already happened with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), he said.
"Ten years ago, CML was treatable primarily by bone marrow transplant, but 1 out of 4 people died from the complications of treatment. We had this horrible conundrum. Much of the time the disease would be discovered while people were still pretty healthy, so the dilemma for the patient was: 'Do I have this traumatic bone marrow transplant that has a 1 in 4 chance of taking my life, or do I try to stick this out?' Then along came imatinib [Gleevec]. It keeps about 85% of people with CML in remission for many years. Now, only a tiny number need to go on to bone marrow transplant when that pill doesn't work."
Taking a pill to keep blood cancers at bay is not some pie-in-the-sky thing.
Imatinib has paved the way for other drugs that are available now as alternatives, Dr. Smith said. "What this tells me is that this dream of taking a pill to keep blood cancers at bay is not some pie-in-the-sky thing. It's going to happen, and we need to take the lessons learned from imatinib and apply them to our other hematologic cancers."
One is acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which is a particular focus of Dr. Smith's right now. "I'm firmly convinced that it's probably several hundred different diseases, and that we need to understand more about the particular AML that each individual person has and then tailor treatment to what that profile looks like," he said.
"With CML, everybody who comes in the door has a common genetic change that we can target. In AML, I think there are going to be hundreds of genetic changes. We will have to do a better job at identifying which one an individual has so that we can use the medicines that are right for that person, instead of lumping everybody together and giving them all the same thing," he said.
Hooked on Hematology
Dr. Smith was born in Texas, but his father was in the navy and, as a result, he lived "all over the world" as a boy. When it came time to go to college, he returned to Texas, where he received his BA in biology from Rice University in Houston and his MD from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He did his internship and residency in internal medicine at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, and then transferred to New York Hospital to complete his residency.
He became interested in hematology as a medical student. "I encountered some people with leukemia and started reading about this new bone marrow transplant stuff, which had started in the 1970s. I did my training in the early 80s," he recalled.
"Before transplant, there was nothing to do for these people because chemotherapy just wasn't working. There was a real need for something else; these people were suffering in front of your eyes and there was nothing you could do. This was frustrating and horrible. The possibility that you could be part of a field that was just beginning, where a lot of exciting things were going to happen, was irresistible. I actually transferred to New York City so I could work at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, which was one of the top centers at the time, and just got totally hooked."
Twenty-five years later, Dr. Smith is still hooked. "I'm continually challenged, intellectually and emotionally. Hematology oncology is an area in which you can really make a difference, and hopefully help make the world a better place."
Source...