Cancer in Adolescents and Young Adults

Archie Bleyer, MD, became interested in AYA oncology in the mid 1990s when he became aware that the progress in cancer he had personally witnessed in children had not occurred in adolescents. As Chair of the Children's Cancer Group, he formed the CCG AYA Committee and in 1999, had the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) conduct a workshop on the topic. Dr. Bleyer subsequently engaged in a national AYA oncology initiative the Children's Oncology Group, NCI Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program, U.S. President's Cancer Panel, American Society of Clinical Oncology, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and the Aflac Foundation. The initiative has since been joined by U.S. NCI Director's Office, Teens Living with Cancer (13 to Thirty), the LiveStrong Young Adult Alliance, the Critical Mass Young Adult Cancer Alliance, Teenage Cancer Trust, Planet Cancer, CanTeen, Teen Impact, CancerCare, Young Survival Coalition, multiple cancer centers in the U.S., Australia, and Europe, and Sigma-Tau, Jazz and Baxalta Pharmaceuticals. All this was facilitated by what he learned from >$75 million research grants over the years that he has had the privilege to administer as a  Principal Investigator. He is a Clinical Research Professor in Radiation Medicine and The Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University and founder of DEFEATcancer of the St. Charles Health System in Central and Eastern Oregon.

In 2014, he received the Critical Mass Trailblazer Award in Young Adult Oncology and in 2015 the American Society of Clinical Oncology Special Recognition Award, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and the Archie Bleyer Aflac Young Investigator Award in AYA Oncology from the Children's Oncology Group. Prior awards include the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Distinguished Career Award, the AmericanCancer Society's Partners in Courage Award, the Wellness Community Living Wellness Award, and Teens Living with Cancer Melissa Living Legacy Foundation Award. He has been named among America's Top Doctors, one of America's Top Pediatricians by Consumers' Research Council of America, and a Leading Health Professional of the World by the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, England. He is a Fellow in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow, Scotland).

Ronald Barr was born in Scotland and graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1966. After training in internal medicine and hematology, in 1970 he joined the team from Glasgow charged with developing a Faculty of Medicine at the University of Nairobi; the first medical school in Kenya. Soon after returning to Scotland from Kenya, following his mentor to the University of Aberdeen, he moved to the United States in 1974 for two years as a Visiting Scientist in the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. After a further short sojourn in Scotland, in 1977 he joined the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada where he is Professor of Pediatrics, Pathology and Medicine.  Dr. Barr led the Division of Hematology and Oncology at McMaster Children's Hospital for 30 years. He has authored some 400 publications, co-edited the first edition of this book with Dr. Archie Bleyer and is co-chair of the federally funded National Task Force on Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology in Canada.