Mitchell Gail Gives 2015 AACR-ACS Award Lecture

May 4, 2015, by DCEG Staff

In April 2015, Mitchell H. Gail, M.D., Ph.D., was selected to receive the 24th Annual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)-American Cancer Society Award for Excellence in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention. He presented his award lecture, titled "Risk models and cancer prevention", at the AACR Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Gail was recognized for his pioneering statistical work in cancer research and development of cancer risk prediction models, in particular the “Gail model”. In 1989, Dr. Gail described a statistical model to estimate the absolute risk for a white woman of a specific age with specific risk factors to develop breast cancer; it was the first cancer risk prediction model that could be applied in a generalized population. Today, over 2 million users per year access the adapted Gail model via the NCI Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool. Dr. Gail continued to build on his findings to more accurately assess the risk of developing breast cancer among African-American, Asian-American, and Hispanic women.