Staff, Pictures and Bios

Jeff Moscow, MD, Branch Chief

Jeffrey A. Moscow, MD, joined the Investigational Drug Branch (IDB) in 2014 after serving part time since 2012, and was appointed Branch Chief in 2018. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Dr. Moscow completed his pediatric residency at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas and a fellowship in pediatric hematology-oncology in the Pediatric Oncology Branch, NCI. More…

S. Percy Ivy, MD, Associate Branch Chief, IDB

S. Percy Ivy, MD, is the Associate Chief (2005-present) of the Investigational Drug Branch (IDB), which is part of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) in the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis of the National Cancer Institute. She received her medical and subspecialty training at Tulane University Medical School, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and the National Cancer Institute, respectively. More…

John J. Wright, MD, PhD, Associate Branch Chief, IDB

Dr. Wright received a PhD in molecular virology from the University of Illinois Medical Center and his medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. He completed internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He then was a research fellow in the Metabolism Branch of the National Cancer Institute. More…

Helen Chen, MD, Associate Branch Chief, IDB

Dr. Helen Chen joined the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) of National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 2000. She currently serves as Associate Chief of the Investigational Drug Branch (IDB) Section III, which focuses on the clinical development of antibody-based therapeutics, active immunotherapies, MAPK and RTK inhibitors as well as antiangiogenic agents. More…

Steven Gore, MD, Physician

Steven Gore, MD, is an internationally recognized expert in drug development in leukemia. His research career focused on the development of drugs with epigenetic targets for the treatment of myeloid disease, and he has played a major role in the incorporation of epigenetic modifiers in the treatment of myeloid malignancies. Among his many other accomplishments, Dr. Gore has been on the NCI Leukemia Steering Committee since 2015 and became co-chair in 2017. More…

Charles Kunos, MD, PhD, Physician

Charles Kunos, MD, PhD, is a Medical Officer in the Investigational Drug Branch (IDB) of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP), Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD) at the NCI and oversees adult and pediatric investigational therapeutics alone or in combination with radiation therapy. More…

Cheryl Pickett-Gies, MD, PhD, Physician

Cheryl Pickett-Gies, MD, PhD, joined the Investigational Drug Branch and CTEP in January of 2020 to focus on early clinical trials of immunotherapy agents. Before coming to IDB, she was a Clinical Research Medical Director in Oncology at Amgen. More…

Richard Piekarz, MD, PhD, Physician

Dr. Piekarz is a Medical Officer in the Investigational Therapeutics 2 Section of the Investigational Drug Branch of CTEP. Dr. Piekarz is a graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he received a PhD in Molecular Pharmacology in addition to an MD. He did his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University Hospitals of Cleveland. More…

Elad Sharon, MD, MPH, Physician

Elad Sharon, MD, MPH, joined CTEP in December 2011 as a Senior Investigator in IDB where he works with academia and industry to develop promising new cancer therapies. His portfolio includes antibody-drug conjugates, immune checkpoint inhibitors and other agents. Dr. Sharon co-directs immunotherapy trials at CTEP and serves as an attending physician in NCI's Developmental Therapeutics Clinic. More…

Minkyung (Min) Song, Ph.D., Program Director

Dr. Song fosters, manages, oversees and analyzes the NCI portfolio on multidisciplinary, translational and clinical research grants and cooperative agreements for Clinical trials of chemotherapy, immunotherapy, cellular therapy, gene therapy, radiation therapy, surgery, or their combinations, and associated correlative studies. More…

Howard Streicher, MD, Physician

Dr Streicher received AB in physics from Cornell University and his medical degree from New York University. He completed an internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at the New York University-Bellevue Medical Center and New York Veterans Hospital. More…

John (Torrey) Sandlund, MD, Physician

John (Torrey) Sandlund, MD, an internationally recognized expert in the development of new therapies for pediatric lymphomas, joined the Investigational Drug Branch (IDB) in April 2020. He will focus on tyrosine kinase inhibitors and downstream MAPK pathway inhibitors, protein homeostasis inhibitors, and epigenetic agents. More…

Kim Witherspoon, Senior Program Specialist, Biologist

Ms. Kim Witherspoon has been a part of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) since September 2000. She became part CTEP’s Investigational Drug Branch (IDB) in February 2018. In IDB, Kim ensures compliance with NIH and NCI grant policy. She is Senior Program Specialist for the Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network (ETCTN). She performs duties as a Program Official, a Level II FAC-Contract Officer's Representative (COR), and Program Analyst. As a Program Official, her portfolio includes clinical research projects focused on bioethics. More…