Board of Trustees

Michaele Chamblee Christian - Trustee

Michaele Chamblee Christian, M.D. received her M.D., summa cum laude, from Georgetown University School of Medicine where she was first in her class.  She received numerous awards, including the Kober Award for highest academic achievement and election into Alpha Omega Alpha, honor medical society.   She completed residency training in internal medicine and fellowships in hematology and oncology at Georgetown.  She worked as Acting Chief and Head of the Developmental Chemotherapy Section in the Investigational Drug Branch on clinical development of new anti-cancer drugs.  In 1995 she established National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Clinical Trials Monitoring Branch, which oversees quality assurance and compliance for hundreds of NCI clinical trials.  From 1997 to 2007, she was Director of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) of the NCI which maintains a major program in early drug development and collaborates with over 50 pharmaceutical companies to develop new agents for cancer. CTEP is also responsible for coordinating NCI=s extensive program of extramural cancer treatment clinical trials, coordinating 10 clinical trials cooperative groups and managing a large portfolio of cancer research grants.

Personal research interests include early therapeutics development, ovarian cancer treatment, clinical trial design and methodology, health disparities and enhancing the participation of underrepresented populations in clinical trials.  She has authored numerous articles and chapters in these areas.  She was active in NIH Roadmap activities and serves on the NCI-FDA Interagency Oncology Task Force where she co-chairs the Process Sub-committee and the Senior Leadership Team.  She is an active participant in professional societies, including the American Association of Cancer Research where she served on the Board of Directors, and chair of Women in Cancer Research and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.  She reviews for many medical journals and served as an Associate Editor of Clinical Cancer Research, Journal of Clinical Oncology and Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.

Medicine is her second career.  She began in arts administration with Friends of the Kennedy Center and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.  She is active in community organizations, primarily in education and the arts, including the boards of the Black Student Fund and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts Project which she chairs. 

Dr. Michaele Chamblee Christian is married and has three daughters.  She enjoys monotype printmaking, antiquing, collecting art, tennis, fitness, and reading.

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