The Forbeck Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board has always been the engine behind our Forums, a small, rotating group of distinguished scientific minds who shape which questions we tackle and who’s in the room to tackle them. This fall, we’re saying a heartfelt thank you to two members who have shaped that mission for decades.
Dr. John T. Kemshead has been part of the Forbeck story since the very beginning, joining the Foundation in 1985. Over the following four decades, he attended numerous Forums, mentored generations of Scholars at our Retreats, and helped define what makes a Forbeck meeting different from any other scientific gathering. Dr. Sara A. Courtneidge joined the SAB in 2009 and has spent more than fifteen years lending her expertise in cancer cell biology and metastasis to guide our Forum topics and attendees, all while remaining one of the Foundation’s most steadfast supporters. We are endlessly grateful for their years of generosity, insight, and friendship, and the Forbeck family they helped build along the way.
As we thank Drs. Kemshead and Courtneidge, we’re equally excited to welcome three remarkable new voices to the Scientific Advisory Board: Dr. Douglas Green of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Dr. Jay F. Sarthy of Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Ting Wang of WashU Medicine. Each brings a distinct area of expertise, and together, they carry the same spirit of curiosity and collaboration that has always defined the Forbeck SAB.
Douglas Green, PhD
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Dr. Doug Green has spent his career asking one of biology's biggest questions: how do cells decide between life and death? As Co-Leader of the Cancer Biology Program and the Peter C. Doherty Endowed Chair of Immunology at St. Jude, he's published more than 600 papers and earned election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020. But what really sets Doug apart is how he leads. He's built a research community rooted in collaboration and mentorship, bringing the same creativity to the lab that he brings to his life outside it as a musician, blogger, and magician.
Jay F. Sarthy, MD, PhD
Seattle Children's Hospital
Dr. Jay Sarthy works at the intersection of two of the hardest parts of pediatric oncology: caring for children through bone marrow transplants and unraveling the genetic mysteries behind their disease. As an Attending Physician at Seattle Children's and an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, he treats kids with blood cancers and rare genetic conditions like telomere syndromes, while his research digs into pediatric cancer epigenetics, or how genes go off script and let cancer take hold. That dual view, bedside and bench, drives his search for better treatments.
Ting Wang, PhD
WashU Medicine
Dr. Ting Wang's path took him from Peking University to Washington University in St. Louis, where he now holds the inaugural Sanford C. and Karen P. Loewentheil Distinguished Professorship and leads the Department of Genetics. He's internationally recognized for showing how so-called "junk DNA," the transposable elements once dismissed as genomic filler, actually shapes gene regulation and can drive cancer when it goes wrong. His lab built tools used by scientists worldwide, including the WashU Epigenome Browser, and he currently directs several major national genomics initiatives, from the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium to the SMaHT Network. Somehow, he also finds time to lead nearly half a dozen major data centers at once.
