Speaker Details

BIOGRAPHY

Claire Verschraegen, MD, is a Senior Advisor to The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. She also holds the Diane Nye and Michael Rayden Chair in Innovative Cancer Research and serves as a Professor of Internal Medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. She is the Immediate Past Director of the Division of Medical Oncology and Associate Director for Translational Research. Dr. Verschraegen earned her medical degree at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium and trained at the Institut Jules Bordet in internal medicine and oncology. She then completed a cancer research fellowship at the Stehlin Foundation for Cancer Research and internal medicine residency training at the University of Houston, followed by a medical oncology fellowship at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she started her career, sub-specializing in gynecology medical oncology. She was on faculty for 7 years at Anderson Cancer Center. She then moved to the University of New Mexico Cancer Center where she developed the clinical trial office, a state-wide enterprise, that helped support the NCI-designation for this cancer center, and exponentially grew the clinical research enterprise. Prior to joining The OSUCCC – James, Dr. Verschraegen served as Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Vermont Cancer Center. She held numerous leadership roles including Director of the Cancer service line at Fletcher Allen Health Care and Co-director of the University of Vermont Cancer Center. She organized a new cancer service line for the hospital and led the cancer center’s phase 1 clinical trials program. Eight years ago, Dr. Verschraegen joined The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, as Associate Director for Translational Science, and Division Chief for Medical Oncology. She has grown the medical oncology division from 32 to >80 faculty members, made up of clinicians and researchers working in oncology subspecialties, including breast, endocrine, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, gynecologic, head and neck, and cutaneous cancers and sarcoma, drug development, and epidemiology. Research funding has quadrupled, and all faculty are committed to the academic mission toward a cancer-free world. Throughout her professional career, Dr. Verschraegen has been active, initially in the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer, then on the national scene, for the NCI and the cooperative oncology groups including SWOG, the Gynecologic Oncology Group, and the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, where she served on the Alliance Board of Directors and on the Executive Committee. She is also the Principal Investigator of the NCI’s National Clinical Trial Network OSU-LAPS. Additionally, she volunteers for American Society of Clinical Oncology and Association of American Cancer Institutes and serves on the NCI Gynecological Cancer Steering Committee and NCI study sections. She has over 200 publications and has been continuously funded for her research. She has a keen interested in promoting leadership for cancer division and department chairs and has launched national initiatives around this topic. For her national efforts on this topic, in the fall of 2019 Dr. Verschraegen she was named the “Woman Oncologist of the Year” at the LEAD conference: Leadership, Empowerment and Development Enriching Experiences for Women in Hematology & Oncology. She always strives to promote the people she leads to achieve the best they can offer, through great research, superb clinical care, poise, and resiliency.