Sherry Hanson, a cancer survivor and advocate

Sherry Hanson was diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer in 2009. Since her diagnosis, she has undergone surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy as part of a clinical trial. She promotes education and awareness with the Ovarian Cancer Alliance and serves as a scientific research advocate with the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute. “Persistence should be my middle name,” she says. “After three bouts of cancer I know one thing to be true. You have to be a fighter.”

Sara Murray, supervisor, OHSU Cellular Therapy Laboratory

Sara Murray manages the cellular therapy laboratory at OHSU which oversees the transfer of human cells to heal or replace damaged tissue or cells. Over the past 16 years, she and the lab team have seen how immunotherapy—from stem cell transplants to CAR T-cell therapy—are transforming the way we treat cancer. In 2018, the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute became one of a handful of certified treatment centers in the nation to offer a gene transfer therapy, Kymriah, for a common form of lymphoma.

Elie Traer, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine

Elie Traer is a hematologist and oncologist at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute who specializes in treating patients with acute myeloid leukemia. He leads clinical trials that evaluate targeted therapy with kinase inhibitors in leukemia patients and studies how the bone marrow microenvironment provides sanctuary to leukemia cells by providing critical survival signals, which eventually lead to disease resistance and relapse. He is working to develop new therapies that more effectively target cancer cells within the microenvironment and improve existing therapy.