Sharyn Baker announced as 2024 ASPET Susan Band Horwitz Award Lecture in Cancer Pharmacology recipient

The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) awarded Sharyn D. Baker, PharmD, PhD, Gertrude Parker Heer Chair in Cancer Research and professor and chair of the Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmacology, the 2024 Susan Band Horwitz Award Lecture in Cancer Pharmacology. 

The ASPET Division for Cancer Pharmacology established this award lecture to recognize excellent original research by established investigators in the area of cancer pharmacology. The award is named in honor of Dr. Susan Band Horwitz, a pioneer in understanding the mechanism of action of cancer chemotherapy drugs many of which have been and remain mainstays of cancer therapy and whose work has changed the nature of cancer treatment. 

Dr. Baker is receiving this award in recognition for her pioneering studies combining basic, translational, and clinical research on anticancer drug resistance, dose variability, and dose optimization. As well as her commitment to leading and mentoring the next generation of cancer pharmacologists.

Dr. Sharyn Baker has been a leading investigator in the clinical pharmacology and optimization of cancer therapies in patients over the course of her distinguished career. This has included recognizing physiologic, biochemical and genetic factors that contribute to variability in anticancer drug exposure and response.

She has played a pivotal role in understanding resistance mechanisms to tyrosine kinase inhibitors as well as the clinical pharmacology of these drugs in adult and pediatric patient populations. Getting the right drug(s) at the correct dose in each patient defines the concept of precision medicine and Dr. Baker has played a significant role in identifying the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic defining factors critical to this concept in and has been a leading voice in clinical cancer pharmacology over the last two-plus decades. Dr. Baker has been a member of ASPET since 2019.

The award will be presented by the Division for Cancer Pharmacology on Saturday, May 18, 2024, during the ASPET 2024 Annual Meeting in Arlington, Va. Dr. Baker will present a lecture on her work, titled "FLT3 Inhibitor Resistance: Novel Mechanisms and Combinatorial Treatment Strategies" as part of the annual meeting.