Meet Hatim Sabaawy, MD, PhD

Hatim Sabaawy, MD, PhD, of the University of Colorado Cancer Center is the Director of Personalized Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at the CU School of Medicine. Dr. Sabaawy is responsible for fostering translational research activities across the academic and clinical partner institutions of the CU Cancer Center, including Children’s Hospital Colorado and UC Health.

Dr. Sabaawy completed his medical residency and graduate training n Genetic Pharmacology both at Cairo University Hospital and New York Medical College in Valhalla, NY.

Dr. Sabaawy went on to complete his fellowship at the Transplantation and Immunology Branch of the Center for Cancer Research at the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Before his appointment to CU, Sabaawy was at Rutgers University where he served as an associate professor of medicine and Pathology and laboratory medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and associate professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at the Rutgers Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

Also at Rutgers, Dr. Sabaawy served as the director of patient derived organoid service, associate director of the biorepository, director of the Cell and Gene Therapy Good Manufacturing Practice Facility. He also served as a member of the executive committee of the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey, and was a principal investigator at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey’s Clinical Investigations and Precision Therapeutics program.

Dr. Sabaawy is in pursuit of a future where personalized medicine transforms healthcare. Specifically, by tailoring treatment to the individual patient. Researchers are optimistic that this type of personalized medicine, in which treatments are designed around an individual’s genetic profile, is the future of cancer treatment.

Vision for the Correlative Sciences Clinical Trial Working Group

David J. McConkey, PhD, professor of urology and oncology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Gaorav P. Gupta, MD, PhD, assistant professor of radiation oncology, biochemistry, and biophysics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, serve as co-chairs with Dr. Sabaawy.

The HCRN correlative sciences working group advises investigators on the correlative research objectives of HCRN studies that are in development and continues to keep up with emerging technologies that support correlative research. A future goal of the correlative sciences working group is to create a clinical database from HCRN studies and develop methods to share that data widely throughout the network.

Dr. Sabaawy encourages all investigators, senior or junior, to get involved in the correlative working group and says HCRN provides opportunities to be involved in multi-institution studies, a place to present ideas and concepts, receive feedback, and find collaborators and sources of funding. Ideas and concepts that begin in a working group receive continued support from HCRN, with the opportunity to present at larger meetings, taking a trial to industry, and moving a trial to open to accrual.

The co-chairs also encourage investigators who have been involved in clinical trials with HCRN to join the group and help catalyze additional enthusiasm within current members.

Investigators interested in the bi-monthly correlative sciences working group should join the next meeting on Friday, September 30th, 2022, at 10:30 AM ET. Reach out to Debbie Schlegel at dschlegel@hoosiercancer.org with questions regarding clinical trial working groups.

“Research is a team effort, and the network is a great opportunity to be able to get all the investigators sharing the same vision to work together,” said Dr. Sabaawy.

Drs. Sabaawy, Gupta, and McConkey see the future of the correlative sciences working group as an exciting space full of robust discussion with investigators from all institutions across the network.

“I’m proud to be a part of the team serving as co-chair with Dr. McConkey and Dr. Gupta and I hope this correlative science working group will allow us to generate a joint vision that can take the network to the next level,” says Dr. Sabaawy.

Register for the next Translational Research Seminar

The correlative science working group introduced the HCRN Translational Research Seminars series in late 2021 to provide opportunities for investigators to present innovative biomarker research and discuss potential collaboration.

The seminars are open to all investigators at HCRN member institutions. HCRN plans three seminars in 2022. Investigators may sign up to receive seminar invitations at https://www.hoosiercancer.org/seminars.

About Hoosier Cancer Research Network
Hoosier Cancer Research Network (formerly known as Hoosier Oncology Group) conducts innovative cancer research in collaboration with academic and community physicians and scientists across the United States. The organization provides comprehensive clinical trial management and support, from conception through publication. Created in 1984 as a program of the Walther Cancer Institute, Hoosier Cancer Research Network became an independent nonprofit clinical research organization in 2007. Since its founding, Hoosier Cancer Research Network has conducted more than 230 trials in a variety of cancer types and supportive care, resulting in more than 350 publications. More than 9,000 subjects have participated in Hoosier Cancer Research Network clinical trials.