St. Jude is widely regarded for childhood cancer survivorship research, having won the American Association for Cancer Research Team Science Award for work in this field. St. Jude hosts the largest long-term, follow-up clinic for childhood cancer patients in the United States, the Childhood Cancer Survivors Study. Our investigators also maintain one of the world’s largest and longest-running studies, which focuses on the long-term effects of cancer and its treatments, the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study. Our expert clinicians specialize in caring for survivors to learn about patients’ unique health needs due to past cancers or treatments.
Learn more about childhood cancer survivorship and resources.
To schedule an interview with one of our experts, email media@stjude.org.
Cancer Survivorship Experts
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Greg Armstrong, MD, MSCE
Armstrong
Greg Armstrong, MD, MSCE, St. Jude Department of Epidemiology and Cancer Control chair, leads research on the long-term outcomes of childhood cancer survivorship. His research focuses on the genomic, socio-economic, lifestyle and other factors contributing to childhood cancer survivors’ health concerns. He is the principal investigator for the Childhood Cancer Survivorship Study and co-chairs the St. Jude LIFE Cardiopulmonary Working Group. Armstrong’s work has made significant strides in survivorship advancements for people treated for cancer as children.
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Stephanie Dixon, MD, MPH
Dixon
Stephanie Dixon, MD, MPH, St. Jude Departments of Epidemiology and Cancer Control and Oncology, studies ways to improve the health and lifespans of childhood cancer survivors. This endeavor starts with decreasing the toxicity of childhood treatments, encouraging healthy lifestyle behaviors after treatment and increasing access to treatments for modifiable health conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes, throughout the survivors' lives.
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Melissa M. Hudson, MD
Hudson
Melissa Hudson, MD, St. Jude Division of Cancer Survivorship, director and After Completion of Therapy (ACT) Clinic co-leader, is an expert in pediatric cancer survivorship. Through her leadership, the ACT clinic monitors more than 8,000 long-term childhood cancer survivors treated in St. Jude clinical trials. ACT serves as a paradigm of health promotion in a research setting that monitors complications, provides screening and prevention plans and integrates the cancer experience with health care needs. Hudson is also available to speak about her widely published research initiatives on pediatric Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which studied the after-effects of childhood cancer treatments and health education of childhood cancer survivors.
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Kirsten Ness, PT, PhD, St. Jude Department of Epidemiology and Cancer Control, is a physical therapist and clinical epidemiologist focused on recognizing, describing and remediating functional limitations in childhood cancer survivors. As principal investigator of the Human Performance Lab at St. Jude, Ness collaborates with other investigators to understand physiological impairments and problems with movement and physical function in patients and survivors of childhood cancer. Ness also serves on the executive committee of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study and the Children’s Oncology Group Long Term Follow-up Guidelines for Survivors of Childhood and Adolescent Cancer.
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Yadav Sapkota, PhD
Sapkota
Yadav Sapkota, PhD, St. Jude Department of Epidemiology and Cancer Control, leads research to assess childhood cancer survivors’ risk of developing health conditions and illnesses later in life. He builds models to understand better the risk of developing toxicities based on patients’ characteristics, cancer treatments and genetic profiles. He uses a variety of big-data analytical approaches and platforms—including whole genome sequencing, whole-exome sequencing, RNA-sequencing, proteomics and metabolomics—to home in on the mechanisms that underlie long-term toxicities from cancer treatments.
