Racial and Ethnic Disparities and Health Inequities in Oncology Care

Edith Peterson Mitchell, MD, MACP, FCPP, FRCP, is board certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology and is Clinical Professor of Medicine and Medical Oncology at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University and Associate Director for Diversity Programs and Director of the Center to Eliminate Cancer Disparities for Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson.

Dr. Mitchell has spent her medical career helping individuals in medically underserved areas and has demonstrated the importance of community service and outreach, especially to underserved populations. Her research in breast, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers and other GI malignancies involves new drug evaluation and chemotherapy, development of new therapeutic regimens, chemoradiation strategies for combined-modality therapy, patient selection criteria, and supportive care for patients with gastrointestinal cancer.

Dr. Mitchell served as the 116th President of the National Medical Association, and is a member of the American Medical Association, National Medical Association, Aerospace Medical Association, Association of Military Surgeons, Medical Society of Eastern Pennsylvania, ECOG/ACRIN Cancer Research Group, and Radiation Therapy Oncology Group. Because of her experience in the cancer research community, Dr. Mitchell served as a member of the National Cancer Institute Blue Ribbon Panel convened to advise the National Cancer Advisory Board on then Vice President Biden’s National Cancer Moonshot Initiative. In 2019, Dr. Mitchell began service as a member of the President’s Cancer Panel. In 2020, she became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

In addition to her medical achievements, Dr. Mitchell is a retired United States Air Force Brigadier General.

Dr. Ajay Nooka is an Associate Professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He earned his medical degree from Andhra Medical College in Visakhapatnam, India, before relocating to the United States. He received a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, Texas, and then completed his internship and residency at the Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine in Athens, Ohio. He pursued a fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine, where he also served as Chief Fellow before he joined the faculty.

Board certified in Hematology and Medical Oncology, Dr. Nooka primarily focuses on multiple myeloma treatment and research. He is the Scientific Director of Data and Technology Applications at Winship Cancer Institute, Director of the Myeloma Program, and Chair of the Myeloma Working Group at the Department of Hematology and Oncology at Emory University. He is involved in numerous professional organizations, including the International Myeloma Working Group of the International Myeloma Society, American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society of Hematology, and American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapies. Dr. Nooka?s interests as a clinical investigator focus on multiple myeloma and bone marrow transplant. His research interests include integrating genomic and clinical data on a uniform platform to risk-stratify myeloma as well as evaluate newer myeloma therapeutic strategies aimed at prolonging survival of patients with myeloma.

In addition to leading several investigator-initiated and industry-sponsored clinical trials, he is the recipient of several awards and grants and has published more than 300 articles and abstracts in high-quality, peer-reviewed journals including New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Blood, Leukemia, Lancet Oncology, and Cancer. He serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Clinical Oncology and as an invited or ad hoc reviewer for several prestigious journals including Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lancet Oncology, Leukemia, Cancer, Blood Advances, Blood Cancer Journal, American Journal of Hematology, British Journal of Hematology, Bone Marrow Transplantation, and Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation.

Yaw A. Nyame, MD, MS, MBA, is a urologic oncologist with a research interest in health disparities in urologic cancers, with a focus on using patient-centered approaches to build translational health services, molecular and clinical solutions to health inequities in prostate cancer, and other urologic malignancies.

He attended medical school at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and business school at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois, graduating in 2012. Prior to medical school, he completed a master’s in Health Services and Administration at the School of Public Health at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He completed his urology residency training at the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at the Cleveland Clinic and a Society of Urologic Oncology (SUO) fellowship at the University of Washington, where he joined the faculty upon the completion of his training.

Dr. Ana Velázquez Mañana is a thoracic oncologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine in the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Division of Hematology/Oncology at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in California. As a Latina, she advocates for workforce diversity and gender equity and has been named the Assistant Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility for Training of the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCSF. Dr. Velázquez completed her MD at the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, a Master of Biomedical Science at Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (formerly known as Mayo Graduate School), and her Internal Medicine residency at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, where she was a Chief Resident. She joined UCSF in 2018, where she completed her clinical fellowship in Medical Oncology and postdoctoral research fellowship in the National Clinician Scholars Program.

Dr. Velázquez is a member of the prestigious John A. Watson Faculty Scholars Class of 2022 at UCSF and has been awarded a Conquer Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award. She aims to support and improve the outcomes of patients with lung cancer from vulnerable backgrounds using health services and disparities research.