Dr. Sameer Rastogi is a faculty member in the Department of Medical Oncology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, a leading tertiary care center in North India. Currently, he is running a dedicated sarcoma/desmoids/Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) medical oncology clinic at AIIMS New Delhi. He did his Medical Oncology fellowship at Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, and has various publications to his credit including reputed journals. He has received various international awards including the Young Investigator award from SIOP (International Society of Pediatric Oncology) and the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia (COSA) Asia Pacific award.

He has worked on various aspects of desmoid such as sorafenib efficacy, toxicities and outcome, Quality of life study on desmoid, etc., and also has a patient support group Sachin Sarcoma Society closely working with him which supports desmoid patients with various resources. 

Dale R. Shepard MD, PhD is the Director of the Taussig Phase I and Sarcoma programs at Cleveland Clinic. In this role, Dr. Shepard oversees the early development of the new cancer therapies including the genomic-based treatments and immunotherapies that are revolutionizing the care of patients with cancer. He sees nearly 200 sarcoma consults annually with patients from across the country including patients with desmoid tumors. As a medical oncologist and clinical researcher, he has been the principal
investigator for dozens of clinical trials and has been a recipient of a National Cancer Institute Cancer Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award. Dr. Shepard is a thought leader for management of sarcoma, gastrointestinal and genitourinary cancers and has been a consultant for many pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Shepard earned a PhD in Pharmacology and his MD at The Ohio State University and completed a Clinical Pharmacology fellowship at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Maleddu is a Medical Oncologist specializing in sarcoma currently working at the University of Colorado. She treats patients with soft tissue and bone sarcomas, and she has a special interest on desmoid tumors and clinical trials. She completed her training in Italy and the UK. She did her Sarcoma Fellowship at the University College London Hospital in 2020, her general oncology training at the University of Bologna and her MD from the University of Cagliari in Italy.

Keila Torres, MD, ,a graduate from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, of Yeshiva University in New York, decided to make a difference in the lives of those affected by cancer after losing a loved one to cancer. As a surgeon at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Torres specializes in providing surgical care to patients with sarcoma. As a scientist, she also leads a laboratory whose primary goal is to understand how sarcomas grow & how they can be treated more effectively. Her efforts have culminated in several scientific publications, as well as clinical articles & book chapters that have advanced the standard of care for sarcoma patients. 

Dr. Torres has received numerous awards including the 2011 SARC Career Development Award, the National Cancer Institute Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award (2012-2016), & the 2015 American Society for Clinical Investigation Young Physician-Scientist Award. Dr. Torres’ commitment to sarcoma patients does not stop at her professional calling. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Amschwand Sarcoma Cancer Foundation & actively supports the Sally M. Kingsbury Sarcoma Cancer Research Foundation. In fact, much of Keila’s passion & charity work revolves around increasing sarcoma education & awareness. One of her most recent projects was a sarcoma awareness campaign using canine companions as advocates. 

She is the founder and CEO of Sniffing for the Cure, LLC, an independent publishing company founded with the primary intent to empower people with knowledge, hope and inspiration by incorporating their pets into everyday activity. With sarcoma being the most common form of cancer in dogs, Sniffing for the Cure is committed to increase sarcoma awareness in both canines and humans and advance canine cancer research & related clinical trials that may also offer insight into treatment for human sarcoma patients.

Silvia Stacchiotti, MD, Medical Oncologist, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Dei Tumori

A medical oncologist, Dr. Stacchiotti, works in the Adult Sarcoma Medical Treatment Unit, Cancer Medicine Department, Istituto Nazionale Tumori, Milano, Italy, directed by Dr. Paolo G. Casali. 

Her clinical and research activities focus on rare tumors, especially adult sarcomas, including gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), and uncommon histotypes such as chordoma, chondrosarcoma, alveolar soft part sarcoma, desmoids, solitary fibrous tumor and PEComa. She is a member of the Italian Sarcoma Group, a national cooperative group for clinical and translational research on soft tissue and bone sarcomas, and is a member of the EORTC Soft Tissue & Bone Sarcoma Group. She collaborates with the Italian Network on Rare Tumors, a collaborative effort among Italian cancer centers, which tries to exploit distant patient sharing in order to improve quality of care and diminish health migration for rare solid cancers. 

She is a member of ESMO (European Society for Medical Oncology), Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS), American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and has authored >80 scientific publications on sarcoma.

Born in 1968, Dr. Stacchiotti received her medical degree in 1993 in Milan, and trained at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori. She is certified in Clinical Oncology.

Vinod Ravi, MD, is an Associate Professor, Department of Sarcoma Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine. He is also the Clinical Director, Translational Research Accelerator Program, Department of Genomic Medicine, Division of Cancer Medicine, and holds a joint adjunct appointment as an Associate Professor, Department of Genomic Medicine, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer.

Dr. Ravi’s clinical practice is focused on vascular sarcomas such as angiosarcoma and epithelioid hemangioendothelioma. Dr. Ravi is also part of the angiosarcoma and leiomyosarcoma working groups at MD Anderson to efficiently utilize the current moonshot platforms to improve outcomes in these rare diseases. Over the course of the last 8 years that he has been at MD Anderson, he has conducted several Phase II and III studies in patients with sarcoma. His clinical research interests are in the development of novel therapies for angiosarcoma and other vascular tumors.

From a data science standpoint, his research focus is utilization of multi-dimensional clinical and molecular data for identification of effective molecular therapies. Dr. Ravi is interested in correlating responses to specific targeted therapies with molecular predictors to improve clinical trial efficiency and success rates. As the clinical director of TRA (Translational Research Accelerator) program, Dr. Ravi leads the implementation of big data initiative that connects molecular data on patient samples with clinical and radiological information from electronic records.