Steven Pavletic Receives

NIH Director’s Award

A 2006 NCI Director’s Award has been presented to Steven Pavletic, MD, for his development and coordination of an NIH consensus project on clinical trials for chronic graft-versus-host disease.

The project included a consensus development conference that brought together clinical investigators, industry, academia, patients and government agencies to discuss criteria for clinical trials in chronic GvHD.  Held last year in Bethesda, Md., the conference was the culmination of a year-long effort by the hematology-oncology transplantation community and related medical subspecialties to create guidelines that allow rapid conduct of clinical trials in cGvHD.

The award recognized Dr. Pavletic “for efforts in defining, by international consensus, the clinical research criteria for investigating the pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment and response of chronic graft-versus-host disease.” 

In announcing the award, the recently appointed director of the National Cancer Institute, John Niedehuber, MD, said, “This is a very special opportunity for NCI to recognize and thank the extraordinary people who make NCI more than special.  The staff members who are honored embody the dedication, professionalism and expertise of NCI that allows us to continue to move forward in our shared goal of reducing the burden of cancer, as well as enhance many other areas of public health.”

Reports of the conference’s six working committees were published in sequential issues of Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, December 2005 through May 2006.  The committee reports addressed:

·      diagnosis and staging

·      pathology

·      biomarkers

·      response criteria

·      ancillary therapy and supportive care

·      design of clinical trials

The newly developed response criteria for cGvHD were the subject of a workshop at the conclusion of the BMT Tandem Meetings last February in Honolulu.  Data collection forms and information for measuring disease response in cGvHD-related clinical trials are posted online at the ASBMT Web site.