Andrew Kraft will be the featured speaker at the University of Illinois Cancer Center’s Director’s Series seminar on Tuesday, Dec. 17, from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the UIC College of Medicine Research Building (COMRB), Room 7175, 909 S. Wolcott Ave. Kraft will discuss “Novel Signaling Pathways – Potential Targets for Anticancer Chemotherapy.”
Kraft, MD, is Director Emeritus of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, serving as its leader for nearly five years. He is also senior associate dean for translational research at the UA College of Medicine in Tucson, associate vice president for oncology programs at the UA Health Sciences, and the Sydney E. Salmon Endowed Chair at the University of Arizona.
As a nationally recognized cancer physician-scientist and administrator, Kraft led the successful renewal of the UA Cancer Center Support Grant and the recruitment of several renowned cancer researchers to expand the center’s clinical trials and service areas, according to the University of Arizona. He significantly influenced the expansion of prevention efforts and funding for the UA Skin Cancer Institute and Native American Cancer Prevention grants, while maintaining an active research laboratory and treating patients with novel protocols in the sarcoma clinic.
Prior to his tenure at the University of Arizona, Kraft served at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, where he was recruited in 2004 to lead the Hollings Cancer Center’s efforts to become a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center. Prior to his stint in South Carolina, Kraft was chief of the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and associate director of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Kraft earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania, completed his residency at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, and was a research associate and, then, a clinical staff fellow at the NCI. He is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians and American Society of Clinical Investigation. He also is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, American Society of Hematology and American Society of Biologic Chemists.