Feb. 9, 2017

The University of Illinois at Chicago has named Oana Danciu, MD, its representative to the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium Steering Committee.

Dr. Danciu is assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at UIC, and serves as interim director of UIC’s Clinical Trials Office. She specializes in the treatment of patients with breast cancer. Her research interests include development of clinical trials using experimental therapeutics. She is working on identifying molecular pathways and predictive biomarkers for different subtypes of breast cancer.

Dr. Danciu received her medical degree from Carol Davila University in Bucharest, Romania, then pursued a post-doctoral fellowship in cancer biology at Northwestern University in Chicago. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago and a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

An active member of the Big Ten CRC’s Breast Clinical Trial Working Group, Dr. Danciu is a strong supporter of multi-institutional research and the opportunities available through the Big Ten CRC. She is the sponsor-investigator of the BTCRC-BRE15-016 study.

“We are privileged to be a part of the Big Ten CRC and to network with other world-class institutions, investigators, clinicians, and scientists,” Dr. Danciu said. “As an investigator, participating in the Big Ten CRC offers me the opportunity for mentorship and to be able to share my ideas with nationally recognized breast cancer experts.”

The Big Ten CRC Steering Committee is composed of one researcher from each member institution. The Steering Committee meets on a regular basis to review activities of the consortium and decide matters of policy. The Steering Committee determines the criteria for approving concepts for development with the Big Ten CRC.

About the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium: The Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium was created in 2013 to transform the conduct of cancer research through collaborative, hypothesis-driven, highly translational oncology trials that leverage the scientific and clinical expertise of Big Ten universities. The goal of the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium is to create a unique team-research culture to drive science rapidly from ideas to new approaches to cancer treatment. Within this innovative environment, today’s research leaders collaborate with and mentor the research leaders of tomorrow with the unified goal of improving the lives of all patients with cancer.

About the Big Ten Conference: The Big Ten Conference is an association of world-class universities whose member institutions share a common mission of research, graduate, professional and undergraduate teaching and public service. Founded in 1896, the Big Ten has sustained a comprehensive set of shared practices and policies that enforce the priority of academics in the lives of students competing in intercollegiate athletics and emphasize the values of integrity, fairness and competitiveness. The broad-based programs of the 14 Big Ten institutions will provide over $200 million in direct financial support to almost 9,500 students for more than 11,000 participation opportunities on 350 teams in 42 different sports. The Big Ten sponsors 28 official conference sports, 14 for men and 14 for women, including the addition of men’s ice hockey and men’s and women’s lacrosse since 2013. For more information, visit http://www.bigten.org/.