Heather Wakelee, MD, GRACE Faculty

Dr. Wakelee is an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University in the Division of Oncology where she is the co-leader of the lung cancer disease management group. Her focus is in clinical research in lung cancer patients, and she has a particular interest in anti-angiogenesis agents. Dr. Wakelee is the principal investigator of the ongoing International Lung Cancer Intergroup Trial E1505 that is investigating the potential role of bevacizumab in addition to adjuvant chemotherapy for resected early-stage, non-small cell lung cancer. As part of the developmental therapeutics group at Stanford, she is involved in Phase I trials of many exciting compounds with an eye towards further development of them in lung cancer.

Dr. Wakelee attended Princeton University as an undergraduate with a major in molecular biology. She stayed on the East Coast for medical school at Johns Hopkins before returning to her native California for internal medicine residency and fellowship training in medical oncology at Stanford University.

Dr. Wakelee is active as a clinical investigator with a focus in lung cancer. Her current focus is on anti-angiogenesis strategies, primarily with the agent bevacizumab. She is investigating this antibody to vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in combination with chemotherapy for patients with brain metastases from lung cancer, as well as with chemotherapy for newly diagnosed lung cancer patients. She is also conducting a trial with a related compound known as aflibercept (VEGF-TRAP) and a trial with the vascular disrupting agent ASA404.

Dr. Wakelee is an active member of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and is the prinicipal investigator of a large adjuvant trial for patients with completely resected lung cancer who are randomized to chemotherapy or chemotherapy plus bevacizumab.

Dr. Wakelee is also involved in several collaborative efforts with her colleagues in thoracic surgery and radiation oncology (a multi-disciplinary trial for stage III non-small cell lung cancer patients and cyberknife protocols for early stage patients not eligible for surgery), as well as in pulmonary medicine (analysis of blood samples for circulating lung tumor cells and other basic science projects).