Cancer Center Director Bloomfield Named to Prestigious Institute Of Medicine

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Clara Derber Bloomfield, M.D., director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center and deputy director of the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute at Ohio State University, has been elected to the membership of the Institute of Medicine, one of the highest honors awarded to medical researchers.

Bloomfield was among the more than 50 medical professionals named today in Washington, D.C. as new IOM members. Each year, more than 50 new members are elected to the organization by a vote of the current membership. Admission into the IOM - as well as the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering - is considered one of the top achievements a researcher can attain.

"Dr. Bloomfield's election to the national Institute of Medicine is a tremendous honor both for her and for Ohio State," said President William E. Kirwan. "Her selection to join the country's most prestigious group of medical professionals is a direct result of her outstanding career as a leader in cancer research. "In her role as director of our Comprehensive Cancer Center, she leads a team of several hundred of the country's finest young researchers working to overcome this disease. As both physician and researcher, she is the role model for everything a research leader of the highest caliber should be.

"We are exceedingly proud of her for attaining this very high honor."

New members are elected by a vote of the current membership. Candidates are nominated based on their major contributions to health and medicine, although researchers in the fields of social and behavioral sciences, law, administration and economics may be proposed as well. Members are told their election is both an honor and an obligation since they often are asked to serve on national committees investigating major issues of health research or policy.

"This is a well-deserved honor which recognizes Dr. Bloomfield's contributions to her field from both a scientific and leadership perspective," said Dr. Fred Sanfilippo, senior vice president for health sciences and dean of the College of Medicine and Public Health.

" Having a renowned scientist and leader elected to the IOM as a member of the OSU faculty also brings honor and recognition to the university and Medical Center. I believe this has even more value and impact than simply recruiting scientists who have already won such honors at other institutions."

" Dr. Bloomfield's recognition is an excellent indication of the progress we are making in transforming Ohio State into one of the leading public research universities in the country."

Over the past few years, Bloomfield has co-chaired an international group of nearly 100 scientists that radically changed the World Health Organization's classification of cancers of the blood. The five-year effort resulted in a new classification system that will be used worldwide to evaluate leukemias and lymphomas. Because of the new system, patients with these diseases will be diagnosed earlier and receive better treatment, increasing their chances of survival. (see related story)

"This was the first classification system for these malignancies that has been agreed to around the world," said Bloomfield. "It reflects a different way of thinking about these malignancies.

"This is the first classification system to incorporate genetic findings and we are currently using new techniques to look across the entire genome for molecular fingerprints to more precisely classify leukemias and lymphomas. This will allow us to be more selective in identifying molecular defects and targeting them for therapy, allowing us to tailor our therapy to each individual patient."

Bloomfield joined the university in 1997 to fill the William Greenville Pace III Endowed Chair in Cancer Research and assume the directorship of the Comprehensive Cancer Center. She recently led efforts at the university to retain Ohio State's status as one of only 37 federally designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers named by the National Cancer Institute. A professor of internal medicine and director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology, she is an internationally recognized expert in adult leukemia and lymphoma.

Bloomfield has served on the boards of directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Association of Cancer Research. She has served the National Cancer Institute in multiple capacities including chairing the Board of Scientific Counselors for the NCI Division of Cancer Treatment. She is currently one of three chairs of the National Cancer Institute's Progress Review Group, which is setting the national research agenda for the next five years to find new approaches to accelerate the cure rate for patients with leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

She was the first researcher to suggest and then prove that adults, including the elderly, who were suffering from acute leukemia - long thought to be fatal - could be cured through chemotherapy. She has authored more than 600 research publications and presented more than 260 research papers at major scientific meetings. She has been invited to give more than 250 major talks in her field.

"While this honor certainly pleases me personally, I think it is more important that we see it as a recognition of the work of all of my research colleagues," Bloomfield said, "I hope it will serve as an example to young researchers of what can be achieved with the right investment of energy, drive and creativity.

"I hope this honor will also increase the recognition of the exciting opportunities for cutting-edge research that are available at Ohio State," she said.

Before coming to Ohio State, Bloomfield was the chair of the department of medicine at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, and professor of medicine and chief of the division of oncology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Before that, she served as professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota.

She currently serves as a scientific reviewer for 26 research journals, including the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, Science, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and is a member of 13 scientific or medical societies.

Bloomfield is currently the principal investigator for four major National Institutes of Health studies totaling more than $3 million in annual funding. She has led more than 20 research projects since 1976 totaling more than $25 million in support.

Before this year's elections, there were 695 members of the Institute of Medicine. Only one other current Ohio State faculty member, Charles Capen, professor and chair of veterinary biosciences, is on the IOM roles.

Contact: Michelle Gailiun, (614) 293-6054; Gailiun-1@medctr.ohio-state.edu Written by Earle Holland (614) 292-8384; Holland.8@osu.edu.