Avrum E. Spira – Candidate for Board of Directors of AACR

The voting for the 2025 AACR Annual Election is now open, where members will vote for the next President-Elect, Treasurer, five Board Members, and four members of the Nominating Committee.

This year, Avrum E. Spira, MD, MSc is a candidate for the Board of Directors of AACR.

Avrum E. Spira is the founding chief of the Division of Computational Biomedicine in the Department of Medicine at Boston University, where he also serves as a professor of Medicine, Pathology, and Bioinformatics.

He is the director of the J&J Innovation Lung Cancer Center and holds the Alexander Graham Bell Professorship in Healthcare Entrepreneurship. Additionally, he is an attending physician in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Boston Medical Center and the global head of the Lung Cancer Initiative/Interventional Oncology at Johnson & Johnson.

Previously, Dr. Spira was the director of the Boston University-Boston Medical Center Cancer Center (2015-2018) and the director of the Translational Bioinformatics Program at the Clinical Translational Science Institute (2008-2018).

He has held various academic roles in bioinformatics, pathology, and medicine at Boston University and Boston Medical Center, including associate professor and assistant professor positions. Dr. Spira also directed the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program at the Pulmonary Center from 2005 to 2011.

Dr. Avrum E. Spira’s research focuses on translational bioinformatics and molecular biology, with a particular emphasis on understanding airway genomic alterations linked to smoking-related lung diseases.

His work aims to advance the early detection of lung cancer and explore strategies for lung cancer interception. Dr. Spira is also investigating novel intratumoral drug and energy therapies to improve treatment outcomes.

Dr. Avrum E. Spira has made significant contributions to the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) through various leadership roles and service activities. He is currently a member of the AACR Lung Cancer Task Force (2024-present) and the AACR Exploratory IND/Phase 0 Clinical Trials Task Force (2021-present).

He has also served on the AACR Cancer Prevention Working Group Steering Committee (2021-2024), the AACR COVID-19 and Cancer Task Force (2021-2022), and the AACR Special Conferences Committee (2020-present).

Dr. Spira has been involved in multiple AACR committees, including the AACR-Johnson & Johnson Lung Cancer Innovation Science Grants Joint Steering Committee and the AACR Team Science Award Committee.

He has cochaired the Annual Meeting Program Committee (2016-2017) and been a member of the Cancer Prevention Committee and the Education and Training Committee. Additionally, Dr. Spira has contributed to AACR’s journal, Cancer Prevention Research, serving as a senior editor since 2011 and as a member of the editorial board from 2008 to 2011.

Education

Dr. Avrum E. Spira holds a BS in Health Sciences from Vanier College in Montreal, Canada (1991), and earned his MD from McGill University in Montreal (1996).

He later pursued an MSc in Bioinformatics at Boston University (2002).

Dr. Spira completed his postdoctoral training as a fellow in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Boston University (1996-1999) and a resident in Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto (1999-2003).

Awards and Honors

• Recipient, Face of Hope Award, LUNGevity Foundation (2019)
• Elected Member, Association of American Physicians (2017)
• Recipient, Research Innovation and Translation Achievement Award, American Thoracic Society (2017)
• Recipient, The Alton Ocshner Award Relating Smoking and Disease (2013)
• Recipient, Innovator of the Year Award, Boston University (2011)
• Elected Member, American Society for Clinical Investigation (2010)
• Recipient, Caine Halter Hope Now Award, Uniting Against Lung Cancer (2010)

Interviews with Avrum E. Spira

Interview with Avrum E. Spira, M.D., M.Sc. – American Association for Cancer Research (10th November, 2010)

Perspectives in Lung Cancer: Innovation and Optimism – Johnson and Johnson (13th November, 2020)