LTFU attending physician assumes program leadership July 1

The Hutchinson Center's Dr. Stephanie Lee will direct the Long-Term Follow-Up Program, a lifelong monitoring and care program for bone marrow and stem cell transplant survivors. Dr. Paul Martin, who has held the position since 1999, recently announced he will step down from the role July 1.

Lee, a member of the Clinical Research Division, is an attending physician with LTFU. Her research focuses on chronic graft-vs.-host disease and other late complication of transplantation, quality of life and selection of donors. She began working at Fred Hutch in 2006.

Martin credited Lee for contributing to LTFU's success through her national and international leadership of chronic GVHD studies.

Raised in Seattle, Lee attended the University of Washington as an undergraduate, followed by Stanford Medical School. She did a hematology-oncology fellowship at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and then joined the faculty of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute until 2005.

"I am excited and honored to follow Paul Martin as the research director of LTFU," Lee said. "LTFU is world-renowned as a research and clinical program that serves an ever increasing number of transplant survivors. Many survivors are doing well, but so many challenges remain. I am committed to continuing the research excellence expected of the Hutch so that the health and quality of life of our patients is the best it can be."

Dr. Fred Appelbaum, director of Clinical Research, said Martin will continue working as a member of the LTFU team and as medical director for Clinical Research Support.