Brian Leyland-Jones, MB, BS, PhD, FRACP, FRCPC
Chief Medical Officer and Scientific Advisory Board Member for the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR), USA

Dr. Brian Leyland-Jones is the Chief Medical Officer and Scientific Advisory Board Member for the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR). He also serves as the CMO of OTraces and the N OF 1 Mission, and CSO of The Darwin Foundation, collectively devoted to the implementation of prevention and cure of malignancy globally. He sits on several national and international boards, including the Asian Foundation for Cancer Research (AFCR), NED Biosystems, Non-Pareil, and Ratio, and is Director Emeritus for the WIN Consortium. He founded Xanthus, AKESOgen, and Viviphi.
 
Dr. Leyland-Jones joined the academic staff at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and New York Hospitals after medical school, with a special research interest in early phase clinical, clinical pharmacological, and biomarker evaluation of many anticancer compounds, including the platinums and anthracycline analogs in use today. In 1983, he moved to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to head the Developmental Chemotherapy section. During his time with the NCI, he was responsible for the overall development of approximately 70 anti-cancer compounds in various stages of transition from in vitro screening to Phase III clinical trials, including overseeing the early development of paclitaxel in Phase 1 and 2 trials. From 1990 to 2000, he served as founding chair of Oncology and director of the McGill University Comprehensive Cancer Center. He recruited and built a broad multifaceted cancer center, including a robust cross-hospital clinical trials enterprise, with deep clinical pharmacologic and biomarker support. Dr. Leyland-Jones continued as the Minda de Gunzberg Chair in Oncology and professor of medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, for 7 additional years, focusing on the development and biomarker strategies of several of the new targeted oncologic agents.

Dr. Leyland-Jones joined Emory University in 2007. As Director of the Winship Cancer Center and Associate Vice-President of Health Sciences, Dr. Leyland-Jones led the Center to obtain National Cancer Institute Cancer Center Designation, the first in the State of Georgia, and for the first time in 30 years. Dr. Leyland-Jones was instrumental in building the Genomics Medicine Program at the Avera Cancer Institute in Sioux Falls, SD, where he was the Vice President of Molecular and Experimental Medicine from 2014-2019. Dr. Leyland-Jones’ principal academic contributions have been in the fields of anticancer therapy development, the pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacogenetics of oncological clinical trials, the translation of preclinical models into the clinic, biomarker endpoints in Phase I/II clinical trials, and screening and mechanistic studies of novel targeted and chemotherapeutic anticancer agents.
 
Dr. Leyland-Jones holds biochemistry, medical, and doctoral degrees from the University of London. Following residency training at Hammersmith, Brompton, St. Bartholomew’s, and London hospitals, he completed a clinical pharmacology fellowship at Cornell University and a medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He is the recipient of numerous research grants, and has served as principal, co-principal, and co-investigator on more than 100 clinical studies. He has authored and co-authored more than 210 peer-reviewed articles and book contributions, 25 books and book chapters, 425 abstracts, and 35 patents. He has a robust speaking and private consulting practice that takes him all over the world.

 
​ 
See the Speaker List