NCI Center for Cancer Research Grand Rounds

Dr. Gilbert’s focus has been in the area of clinical research, emphasizing both large, multi-institutional studies for malignant gliomas as well as smaller clinical trials that are designed to advance therapies for less common cancers. He was the the Director of the Clinical Research Core for the ongoing Brain Tumor SPORE grant at M. D. Anderson. He recently moved to the National Institutes of Health where he serves as the Chief of the Neuro-Oncology Branch. He serves as the Co-Chair of the Brain Tumor Committee in the NRG Oncology. In addition to his increasing leadership role, he is serving on several important clinical trials within the RTOG. The RTOG 0525 study accrued nearly 1200 patients and will determine whether a dose-dense schedule of temozolomide is therapeutically superior to standard dosing.. This was followed by RTOG 0825 evaluating the role of bevacizumab for newly diagnosed glioblastoma, which completed accrual in 2011 with 975 patients. Upfront tumor collection and molecular stratification, in addition to the placebo-control design and expansion of the quality of life studies signify advances in clinical trial opportunities in the field. The results of RTOG 0825 were presented at ASCO in the plenary session in 2013 and were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2014.

He has also been involved in the creation of two multicenter clinical trial efforts. Eight years ago, with support from philanthropy, he established the Brain Tumor Trials Collaborative (BTTC), a 23 center consortium that is geographically distributed in the United States and designed to do creative, mid-range (100 -250 patient) clinical trials. For example, this group completed accrual to a 176 patient, 8 arm randomized study using a factorial design. Ongoing studies include those with novel trial designs, such as adaptive randomized design, novel treatment for bevacizumab refractory glioblastoma and a randomized double blinded placebo controlled trial of prophylactic anticonvulsants in patients with malignant gliomas.

He was also the founder and leader of the Collaborative Ependymoma Research Network (CERN). This consortium, supported by philanthropy, to focus basic and clinical research efforts on this uncommon adult cancer. Five project ranging from clinical trials, tumor molecular profiling – patient outcomes study, drug discovery by both screening and novel drug synthesis, tumor model creation, exploration of ependymoma stem cells and patient outcomes studies are all ongoing. The CERN recently expanded beyond North America and is now collaborating with centers in Europe.

For more information go to https://ccrod.cancer.gov/ccrlectures