People

Robert Carlson, MD, a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer, has been appointed CEO of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), effective January 2, 2013. NCCN is a not-for-profit alliance of 21 leading American cancer centers dedicated to improving the quality and effectiveness of care for people with cancer.

Carlson is a professor of medicine in the division of oncology at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, CA, having joined the faculty in 1983. He serves as the medical director of inpatient oncology and hematology at Stanford Cancer Institute, an NCCN member. He has held several leadership roles at NCCN since the organization was founded in 1995.

Pascal Soriot, MBA, started his role as CEO of AstraZeneca and joined the company's board as executive director on October 1. He joins AstraZeneca from Roche AG, where he served as chief operating officer of the company's pharmaceuticals division since 2010. Prior to that, Soriot was CEO of Genentech and led the merger of the San Francisco-based biologics business with Roche.

Colleen Lawton, MD, a professor of radiation oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, began her 1-year term as president of the American Society for Radiation Oncology at the end of October. She succeeds Michael Steinberg, MD.

Lawton's research focuses on the role of total body irradiation in stem cell transplantation. She has also worked extensively with the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group on several prostate cancer studies, examining nodal radiation and brachytherapy.