Dr. Frances Shepherd appointed University Professor
Dr. Frances Shepherd, a professor in Medical Oncology in the Department of Medicine, is among five University of Toronto faculty members to be appointed University Professor for 2019. The title “University Professor” is the University’s highest and most distinguished academic rank.
“The University of Toronto owes much of its reputation for excellence to its world-class professors, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to formally acknowledge the outstanding achievements of some of our finest faculty members,” says University of Toronto Vice-President and Provost Cheryl Regehr.
Dr. Frances Shepherd is an instrumental leader in clinical lung cancer research and a highly admired mentor, mentoring nearly 50 national and international post-graduate clinicians and clinician-scientists. She is a Senior Staff Physician and the Scott Taylor Chair in Lung Cancer Research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, sits on numerous national and international lung cancer advisory boards and is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto.
Over the course of Dr. Shepherd’s successful 35 year career in medicine, she has spearheaded more than 100 clinical trials, many of which changed the treatment of lung cancer on a global level. She led a North-American wide study of chemotherapy administered post-surgery, resulting in a 15% improvement in the rate of survival for lung cancer at 5 years. Additionally, her work demonstrated that post-operative chemotherapy can change the cure rate for resected lung cancer and that molecularly targeted treatments can improve survival even in the most advanced stages of the disease, when there were no further options for treatment.
Throughout Dr. Shepherd’s career she has been recognized for many distinctions for her developments in research and teaching, the most recent being the Novartis Canada Oncology Award for Mentorship (2013), the Dr. Joseph Pater Excellence in Clinical Trials Research Award from the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group (2015), the Order of Canada (2016) and the Gairdner Foundation Wightman Award (2018).
Dr. Shepherd’s dedication to the field of lung cancer research has changed the practice around the world.
