President Donald Trump signed an intent to appoint the Lebanese Doctor Hussein Tawbi, a professor and deputy chairman of Melanoma Medical Oncology, to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, known as PCAST.
PCAST is composed of the director of the Office of Science and Technology and up to 16 additional members appointed by the president. They advise the president on matters involving science, technology, education, and innovation policy
Professor Dr. Hussein Tawbi is from the Lebanese southern town of Aitaroun. He graduated in 2001 from the American University of Beirut (AUB).
He continued his specialization at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked for years before moving to the famous MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
Dr. Tawbi is the co-founder and co-director of MD Anderson’s Brain Metastasis Clinic, which is specialized in addressing the difficult issue of treating cancer that has spread from other organs to the brain.
He is also the director of Melanoma Clinical Research and Early Drug Development and has a joint appointment in the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics. He is also a co-chair of the Melanoma Committee in the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) of the National Cancer Institute.
In 2018, he reached the treatment of killer melanoma cancer with immunotherapy after its outbreak that attains the brain.
That treatment contributed to increasing the life expectancy of 82 percent of patients; a breakthrough that has brought him to assume the position of deputy chairman of the Melanoma Cancer Council.
Commenting on his new appointment to the council of advisory, he said: “I truly am honored to serve on PCAST and to participate in shaping a strategy to ensure the United States remains a leader for science and technology.”
He added that he is “particularly excited to tackle key challenges facing researchers and to identify opportunities to augment long-term impact.”