Advisory Committee

Dr. Puzanov is an associate director of the Phase I Drug Development Program, clinical director of Renal Cancer, and associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology-Oncology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. In this role, he also serves as Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) mentor.

His major interests are phase I drug development with emphasis on combination immune and targeted therapy development in melanoma and renal cell carcinoma as well as novel drug design, including histology-agnostic trial development of targeted therapies. As the Associate Director of Phase I Drug Development Program at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Puzanov also provides advice on regulatory requirements and necessary steps associated with advancing drugs, devices, and imaging agents toward clinical trials in humans.

His interest in immunotherapy started in early 1990s in the laboratory of Dr. Vinay Kumar, where they established IL-15 as the cytokine for NK cell development. His has continued with IL-2 studies conducted with the Cytokine Working Group and recently studies with both CTLA-4 and PD1/PDL-1 targeted therapies.

Dr. Puzanov received his medical degree from Charles University in the Czech Republic. He completed an internship at the University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, Texas, and a hematology-oncology followship at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.

Joanne Riemer, RN, BSN, began her nursing career at Johns Hopkins Hospital as an inpatient nurse on the solid tumor oncology unit. From there she moved into critical care in coronary care, intensive care, emergency, and recovery rooms. In 2002, she returned to oncology at Johns Hopkins in the outpatient infusion area, then radiation oncology, staff education, and in 2010 to her current position as senior research nurse on the Upper Aero-digestive Team. In January 2011, she was asked to work with the immunology group on a multidisease study using MDX-1106, which became BMS-936558 and then Nivolumab. She was assigned to the non-small cell lung cancer patients and since then has been almost exclusively working with immunotherapy trials.

In addition to her involvement with the immunotherapy trials, she and fellow colleagues created a booklet for oncology nurses treating patients with immuno-oncology agents. The booklet is an overview of these agents' indications and mechanisms of action and suspected related side effects.

Matthew R. Zibelman, MD, is a genitourinary medical oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, where he specializes in renal cell carcinoma and urothelial carcinoma with a particular clinical and research interest in immunotherapy.

Dr. Zibelman has published numerous articles on immunotherapy for GU cancers and is the principal investigator for two ongoing, investigator-initiated combination immunotherapy trials. He is also the PI for a grant geared at standardizing management of immune-related adverse events across his institution, utilizing and then providing immunotherapy event management education to patients, staff, and non-oncologists using a variety of media platforms.

He received his medical school training from Temple University in Philadelphia and completed his fellowship training in medical oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center.