Heather Wakelee

Clinical Focus

• Cancer> Thoracic Oncology
• Lung Cancer - Medical Oncology
• Investigational Therapeutics
• Medical Oncology
• thymoma

Honors and Awards

• Teaching Award, Stanford University Division of Oncology (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Alpha Omega Alpha, Johns Hopkins University (06/1996)
• Merit Award, American Society of Clinical Oncology (05/2003)

Professional Education

Postdoctoral Advisees

Manali Patel,  Jonathan Riess

Industry Relationships

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Current Research Interests

Dr. Wakelee is a clinical investigator with a focus in lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies. Along with her other colleagues in thoracic medical oncology at Stanford she is focused on clinical trials with agents that are specifically targeted to known mutations in lung cancer. These trials focus on EGFR targeted agents, and drugs which overcome resistance to traditional EGFR targeted drugs. She is also focusing on Met targeted drugs such as onartuzumab, tivantinib and cabozantinib. Earlier work on anti-angiogenesis agents continues as well.
Dr. Wakelee is an active member of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and is the prinicipal investigator of a large adjuvant trial for patients with completely resected lung cancer who are randomized to chemotherapy or chemotherapy plus bevacizumab.
Thymic malignancies are an understudied rare disease and Dr. Wakelee has developed 2 clinical trials in this patient population. She serves as the chair of the research working group of the International Thymic Malignancies Interest Group (ITMIG) and is working to further expand the research portfolio in this patient population.
Dr. Wakelee is also involved in several collaborative efforts with her colleagues in thoracic surgery and radiation oncology (a multi-disciplinary trial for stage III non-small cell lung cancer patients and cyberknife protocols for early stage patients not eligible for surgery), as well as in pulmonary medicine (analysis of blood samples for circulating lung tumor cells and other basic science projects). She has active collaborations with population scientists at CPIC looking at lung cancer related questions. She is also very focused on exploring lung cancer questions in the Women's Health Initiative through collaborations with Marcia Stefanick.

Clinical Trials

• A Phase II Study of Amrubicin in Relapsed or Refractory Thymic Malignancies Recruiting
• A Phase Ib Immunomodulatory Study of Single Agent Talactoferrin in Patients with Select Relapsed or Refractory Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) and Squamous Head and Neck Cancer (HNSCC) Recruiting
• An Open Label, Multi-center, IRESSA™ Clinical Access Program of Gefitinib 250 mg (IRESSA™) for the Continued Treatment of Patients in the United States Who Are Currently Benefiting or Have Benefited from Gefitinib Treatment Recruiting
• Chemotherapy With or Without Bevacizumab in Treating Patients With Stage IB, Stage II, or Stage IIIA Non-Small Lung Cancer That Was Removed By Surgery Recruiting
• Erlotinib Plus ARQ 197 Versus Single Agent Chemotherapy in Locally Advanced or Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Recruiting

Publications

• Lung cancer incidence in never smokers. Wakelee HA, Chang ET, Gomez SL, Keegan TH, Feskanich D, Clarke CA, Holmberg L, Yong LC, Kolonel LN, Gould MK, West DW. J Clin Oncol. 2007; 25 (5): 472-8
• Differential effect of age on survival in advanced NSCLC in women versus men: Analysis of recent Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) studies, with and without bevacizumab. Wakelee HA, Dahlberg SE, Brahmer JR, Schiller JH, Perry MC, Langer CJ, Sandler AB, Belani CP, Johnson DH. Lung Cancer. 2012
• ERCC1 expression in circulating tumor cells (CTCs) using a novel detection platform correlates with progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving platinum chemotherapy. Das M, Riess JW, Frankel P, Schwartz E, Bennis R, Hsieh HB, Liu X, Ly JC, Zhou L, Nieva JJ, Wakelee HA, Bruce RH. Lung Cancer. 2012
• Maintenance Bevacizumab is Associated With Increased Hemoglobin in Patients With Advanced, Nonsquamous, Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Riess JW, Logan AC, Krupitskaya Y, Padda S, Clément-Duchêne C, Ganjoo K, Colevas AD, Pedro-Salcedo MS, Kuo CJ, Wakelee HA. Cancer Invest. 2012; 30 (3): 231-5
• Metabolic Tumor Volume is an Independent Prognostic Factor in Patients Treated Definitively for Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer. Lee P, Bazan JG, Lavori PW, Weerasuriya DK, Quon A, Le QT, Wakelee HA, Graves EE, Loo BW. Clin Lung Cancer. 2012; 13 (1): 52-8