Brian Rini, an expert in genitourinary oncology, kidney cancer and clinical drug development, is joining Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center as the inaugural chief of clinical trials.
Rini was recruited from Cleveland Clinic, where he serves as director of the Genitourinary Cancer Program and professor of medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. His start date is Jan. 28, 2020.
At Vanderbilt, he will be an Ingram Professor of Medicine and will lead kidney cancer clinical research efforts, in addition to the new role, which will focus on expanding oncology clinical research operations and training opportunities in clinical cancer research across the board.
Rini will join Jordan Berlin, associate director for Clinical Research at VICC and Ingram Professor of Cancer Research, and Vicki Keedy, associate professor of medicine and medical director of the Clinical Trials Office.
Rini served as chair of the FDA Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee in 2018-2019 and completed a four-year term on that committee. He was a founding member of the Kidney Cancer Programmatic Panel for the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, now the largest source of kidney cancer research support in the nation, directing more than $20 million in grant funding to kidney cancer basic, translational and clinical investigations.
FDA in April approved the combination of the targeted therapy axitinib and the immunotherapy pembrolizumab after results of a clinical trial were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Rini was the lead author of that study.
