Press Release: ECOG-ACRIN taps the University of Pennsylvania’s Selina Luger to lead its Leukemia Committee
Dr. Luger will oversee ECOG-ACRIN's unique clinical and translational research contributions in acute and chronic leukemias
Philadelphia, October 20, 2022 — Selina M. Luger, MD, FRCPC, a practicing hematologist-oncologist and internationally regarded acute leukemia and myeloid disorders researcher, is the newly appointed chair of the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (ECOG-ACRIN) Leukemia Committee, effective immediately. She is a professor of medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and a physician at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center, both at the Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia.
Dr. Luger has served as co-chair of the ECOG-ACRIN Leukemia Committee since 2013.
The ECOG-ACRIN Leukemia Committee has a distinguished history of practice-changing clinical trials in acute and chronic leukemias under Dr. Luger and Mark R. Litzow, MD (Mayo Clinic), who chaired the committee during that time. They also oversaw multiple translational studies to refine patient selection and therapeutic targeting in close collaboration with the ECOG-ACRIN Leukemia Translational Science Center.
Dr. Luger will oversee ECOG-ACRIN’s unique clinical and translational research contributions to the National Cancer Institute’s National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN). For years, ECOG-ACRIN’s leukemia trials have included cell and serum banking. As a result, ECOG-ACRIN has successfully performed state-of-the-art molecular biology studies on samples from these trials, correlating the data with outcomes from uniformly treated patients. These efforts engage investigators from the pediatric and adult cooperative groups across the NCTN to advance the science and bring new findings to bear for future trials.
Dr. Luger is currently a member of the ECOG-ACRIN Task Force on Advancement for Women. She chairs the ongoing trial, PrE0905, a Randomized Trial of Gilteritinib vs. Midostaurin in FLT3 Mutated Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
Dr. Luger and Dr. Litzow are leaders in MyeloMATCH, the precision medicine initiative to develop new treatments for patients with myeloid malignancies. This initiative is currently in development by the National Cancer Institute and the cooperative groups in the NCTN. Dr. Litzow co-chairs the MyeloMATCH Senior Scientific Council. Dr. Luger co-chairs the MyeloMATCH Agents and Genes Working Group and is a member of the Senior Scientific Counsel.
Dr. Luger received her BA from Harvard University and her MD from McGill University School of Medicine. She joined ECOG-ACRIN in 1995 while a junior faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, an institutional member of ECOG-ACRIN since 1972.
She served as ECOG-ACRIN Principal Investigator for the University of Pennsylvania from 2011-2019. During that time, she co-chaired the Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology Subcommittee, part of the ECOG-ACRIN Health Equity Committee. In addition, Dr. Luger has participated in the Cardiotoxicity Subcommittee of the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Control and Survivorship Committee. She is also an active member of the American Society of Hematology, where she is an associate editor of Blood and participates in several committees.
Dr. Luger enjoys the opportunities for collaboration and mentoring made possible by her participation in ECOG-ACRIN and looks forward to further advancing clinical trial research in leukemia.
The Leukemia Committee is part of the ECOG-ACRIN Therapeutic Studies Program.
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