Mannel Re-Elected Group Chair of NRG Oncology

Robert Mannel, M.D., director of OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, has been re-elected as one of three group chairs of NRG Oncology.

NRG Oncology is the largest of four cooperative groups that form the foundation of the National Clinical Trials Network, a program of the National Cancer Institute that represents hundreds of clinical research sites in the United States and globally.

NRG Oncology represents the combined expertise of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project, the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, and the Gynecologic Oncology Group. The clinical cooperative has more than 150 years of cumulative experience in conducting multi-institutional Phase II and II trials sponsored primarily by the National Cancer Institute, as well as a history of undertaking the type of Phase 1 trials and translational biological studies that will be imperative for future clinical cancer research.

As a group chair, Mannel helps to oversee NRG Oncology’s research into seven disease sites: adult brain tumors, head and neck cancer, localized and locally advanced lung cancer, breast cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, genitourinary cancer, and gynecologic cancer.

Mannel has been an active member of the National Cancer Institute cooperative group system since 1989 and has been an author of more than 100 research publications stemming from this work. He served as an inaugural deputy group chair for NRG Oncology, and in 2017, he was appointed as a group chair. In 2022, he was named presiding group chair. His fellow chairs are Quynh-Thu Le, M.D., of Stanford University and Norman Wolmark, M.D., of Drexel University School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh Hillman Cancer Center.