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Keynote Speakers
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 Sandra Vermeulen, M.D.
Co-director, Seattle Cyberknife, CherryHill Campus/Swedish Medical Center, Seattle
"Advances in Radiation Technology in the Fight Against Cancer for People and Pets."
Dr. Vermeulen is medical co-director of Seattle CyberKnife Center. Dr. Vermeulen's primary interest for more than two decades has been in the field of stereotactic radiosurgery and stereotactic radiotherapy for treating both intracranial and extracranial benign and malignant tumors. She has more than 15 years experience working with various stereotactic treatment devices, including gamma knife and linear accelerator-based technologies.
Dr. Vermeulen's clinical interests include: 3DCRT, IMRT, malignant and benign brain tumors, breast cancer, mammosite, oncology, treatment devices, linac based fractionated and radiotherapy/radiosurgery.
Dr. Vermeulen serves on two international stereotactic boards - International Stereotactic Radiosurgery Association and International Stereotactic Radiosurgery Society. She served as medical vice president to the American Cancer Society/Seattle Unit from 1989-1993. She co-founded the Deke Slayton Center for Brain Cancer Studies, which funded local brain cancer research as well as raised public awareness and education of the causes and treatment for brain cancer.
Dr. Vermeulen's research interests have included breast brachytherapy, radiation therapy for macular degeneration and T-cell therapy of androgen resistant metastatic prostate cancer and functional radiosurgery with the Leksel Gamma Knife in the treatment of Trigeminal Neuralgia and Tremors.
After finishing her residency at Loma Linda University in 1987, she became assistant professor of radiation medicine at the university's prestigious Proton Beam Facility. Eventually she and her husband relocated to Seattle, Washington, where she is currently in practice at Swedish Medical Center, as part of the Swedish Cancer Institute and Seattle Neuroscience Institute at Swedish.
 Dr. Rainer F. Storb
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Clinical Research Division, Member
Transplantation Biology Program, Head
UW Medicine
Oncology Specialist
Medical Oncology Division, Professor
“Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation in dogs and translation to treat human disease”
Dr. Storb is from Germany. He studied in Munich and Freiburg, was clinically trained there, and completed a residency program there as well.
"I did three years of post-doctoral work in Paris in basic research," Dr. Storb says. "I wanted to do clinical research, so I wrote to three people. One was at the National Institutes of Health, one in Boston, and the other at the University of Washington, Dr. E. Donnall Thomas – he was the youngest of the three and did the most interesting work, so I thought I had a better future with him."
Dr. Storb joined the UW in 1965 with a Fulbright Scholarship. Back in the 1960s, Dr. Storb's clinical research group at the UW consisted of himself, an instructor, and one lab technician, two animal technicians, and a secretary. Later, Dr. Storb was able to apply for a Green Card and was then able to submit his own grant proposals, which kept him from returning to Germany. His first four years at the university were in the lab then he began seeing patients in the general oncology clinic at University Hospital. The University of Washington was among the first institutions in the United States to have an oncology division.
As part of the group that founded the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in 1975, Dr. Storb left general oncology care to concentrate on bone marrow transplantation, which is where his focus remains. Today, Dr. Storb is primarily in the lab, but spends two months working with patients at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and two weeks on consult service.
The Seattle Consortium, which includes 15 other academic centers in the U.S. and Europe, in addition to the Hutchinson Center, has clinical protocols running since the discovery of the mini-transplant a few years ago.
Studies include a prospective comparison of the mini- versus the traditional transplantation; a national mini-transplant application with multiple myeloma patients; several graft-vs.-host disease protocols; and, how to simplify mini-transplantations.
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