Dr. Bergman is the Director of Clinical Studies for VCA.  He is an adjunct faculty member of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Principal Veterinary Investigator for the canine melanoma vaccine (Oncept®), which was fully licensed in 2009.  Prior to Dr. Bergman joining VCA, he served as the Chief Medical Officer for BrightHeart Veterinary Centers from 2007 to 2011; from 1999 – 2007 he was the head of the Donaldson-Atwood Cancer Center at AMC.  After finishing veterinary school from Colorado State in 1990, he was an intern at Kansas State (‘’90–-‘’91) and returned to CSU for his medical oncology residency (‘’91–-‘’94), and then completed a PhD Fellowship in Human Cancer Biology from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (‘’94–-‘’99).  He was previously Chair of the ACVIM Board of Regents and President of the Veterinary Cancer Society.

Dr. Craig Clifford is a graduate of Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine and received an MS degree in Animal Science/Virology from the University of Delaware. After completing an internship and a medical oncology residency at the University of Pennsylvania, he became a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (Oncology) in 2003. He is a medical oncologist and Director of Clinical Studies at BluePearl Malvern in Pennsylvania.

He is active in clinical research within a referral setting and serves as an advisory board member with both industry and non-profit foundations. He is a renowned oncologist who has authored/co-authored over 70 papers and book chapters. He is a frequent lecturer at major veterinary meetings in the USA and abroad. Dr. Clifford is an active member of the VCA Pet Cancer Care Alliance Committee and has served on the VCS Executive Board, ACVIM Exam Rating Committee, Residency Training and Credentials Committee, Oncology Pathology Working Group, Co-chair of the Standards of Excellence in Residency Education Task Force, and an Examiner for the Australian Scientist’s Oncology Specialty Exam.

Dr. Gwendolen “Wendy” Lorch has provided veterinary care for over 25 years. After graduating from The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Wendy did an internship in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery at VCA West Los Angeles, followed by a combined residency and master’s degree in Comparative Veterinary Dermatology at The OSU College of Veterinary Medicine. After a few years in private specialty dermatology practice, she returned to Ohio State to pursue a PhD in Veterinary Biosciences, which served as the defining experience that ignited her passion for translational oncology.

Dr. Lorch is an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Her combined appointment includes clinical service, providing specialty care for both large and small animals with dermatological diseases, and research in translational and comparative pulmonary oncology.

When Wendy’s first beloved purebred cat, a Himalayan named Pita, was diagnosed with pulmonary carcinoma, and it became apparent that therapeutic options were non-existent, this heartbreaking experience served as impetus to try to contribute to the field of veterinary pulmonary oncology. Currently, her fur family consists of five impish, but undeniably adorable, exotic shorthair cats.

Dr. Huentelman is a Professor in the Neurogenomics Division at the non-profit Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix, Arizona. His research interests center on the molecular basis of central nervous system health and disease.

Dr. Huentelman joined TGen in July of 2004 after completing his doctoral work at the University of Florida’s Department of Physiology and Functional Genomics at the McKnight Brain Institute. His research is supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Arizona Community Foundation, Science Foundation Arizona, the Flinn Foundation, and the American Heart Association. He has published over 225 peer-reviewed manuscripts since 1998 which have been cited over 15,000 times.

Nicholas J. Schork is Deputy Director and Distinguished Professor of Quantitative Medicine at The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Adjunct Professor at City of Hope, UCSD, and Scripps Research. He has published over 550 articles in many areas of biomedical and translation science, including patient-oriented clinical trials design. He is the Scientific Director of the NIA-funded Longevity Consortium and Integrated Longevity Genomics Consortium which leverage human and cross-species studies to understand health and longevity. Dr. Schork has 12 patents, been involved with more than 10 start-up companies, and has mentored over 75 students and post-doctoral fellows.

Dr. Nickolas Papadopoulos is a co‐discoverer of the genetic basis of the predisposition to hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer (HNPCC). He was part of the interdisciplinary team that was first to sequence all of the protein-coding genes of four common human tumor types and later, multiple tumor types.  Currently, he is focused in the development of clinical applications in early detection, diagnosis, and monitoring of cancer.  He has developed sensitive methods for the detection of tumor DNA in liquid biopsy.  Recently, he developed CancerSEEK, a blood test for the early detection of multiple cancers.  He is also the co-founder of two companies that develop diagnostics for cancer.