Keynote Speakers and Presenters

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Dr. Catherine K. Mwaba – Keynote Speaker

Dr. Catherine Mwaba (MD) is a seasoned Radiation Oncologist with qualifications from St Petersburg Paediatric State Medical Academy and the College of Medicine of Radiation Oncologists of South Africa. She is the current Vice President of the AORTIC Council—Southern Africa. Currently, she leads the ARROW (Adolescents role-based responsibilities for Oncology workforce) project, an NCI-funded initiative in collaboration with Implenomics, RTI, and the Population Council, focusing on implementation science to enhance cancer care

Dr. Leo Masamba – Keynote Speaker

Dr. Leo Masamba is a leading oncologist in Malawi, known for his significant contributions to cancer care. As the founding oncologist of the Department of Oncology at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH), he has been instrumental in developing and improving oncology services across Malawi, including at Blantyre Adventist Hospital and Mwaiwathu Private Hospital. He is also one of the founding directors of the International Blantyre Cancer Centre, the first radiotherapy center in the country, and is actively involved in the development of the National Cancer Centre in Lilongwe. In addition to his clinical roles, Dr. Masamba serves as a regional council member for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and is a member of the African Cancer Coalition. He has been appointed as a Scientific Advisor for Sanofi, reflecting his influence and leadership in oncology both locally and internationally.

PRESENTERS:

Dr. Rizine Mzikamanda – Pediatric Cancer Updates in Malawi

Dr Mzikamanda is a Pediatric Hematologist, Oncologist, and Medical Director of Texas Children’s Hospital’s Global Hematology-Oncology Pediatric Excellence (Global HOPE) program in Malawi. His mission is to develop evidence-based treatment strategies for pediatric malignancies in Malawi and Sub-Saharan Africa, aiming to improve patient outcomes and quality of life.

Tabitha Warwick – Breast Cancer Care Foundation’s Comprehensive Model for paving the way: Creating integral breast cancer services in Malawi.

Tabitha Warwick is the Founding Director of the Breast Cancer Care Foundation (BCCF), where she leads efforts to provide accessible breast cancer services throughout Malawi. Under her leadership, BCCF operates bi-weekly screening clinics in Blantyre and rural outreach clinics, ensuring that both community members and those in medical settings receive essential care. Beyond screenings, BCCF’s has a mission to promote awareness and education on self-breast exams and to foster a strong Survivorship Culture. Through a comprehensive approach, BCCF not only offers free screening services but also actively engages with the community to enhance breast cancer care across the country.

Dr. George Chilinda – Cervical Cancer updates 

George Kassim Chilinda is a Malawian obstetrician and gynaecologist with over thirteen years of experience in various clinical and administrative roles within the Ministry of Health. He currently serves as a Consultant Gynaecological Onco-surgeon at the Blantyre Cervical Cancer Project, a collaboration between Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-France), Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS), and the Ministry of Health at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital. Chilinda holds a certificate from the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO) and is actively involved in teaching and training fellow gynaecologists in gynaecological oncology surgical procedures. He is also pursuing a Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology and a PhD in Global Health at Utrecht University, Netherlands, with a research focus on using Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy to manage locally advanced cervical cancer in low-resource settings.

Dr. Yuri Fedoriw – Genomic Features of Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma: Updates from the KCH Lymphoma Study 

Dr. Yuri Fedoriw who is the LabCorp Distinguished Professor of hematopathology at UNC and the co-director of the UNC Project Cancer Program alongside Dr. Tomoka. He has been involved in UNC Project Cancer Program since 2011, where he has helped develop and support pathology diagnostic services in support of the Kamuzu Central Hospital Lymphoma Study, AIDS Malignancy Consortium and NIH-funded clinical trials. His laboratory work aims to identify prognostic and predictive biomarkers of lymphoma relevant to the Malawian context. Dr. Fedoriw is a Principal Investigator of the Malawi Cancer Outcomes Research Training Program and an MPI of the UNC-Malawi-South Africa Cancer Consortium funded by the US National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Matthew Painschab – TB or not TB: Lymphadenopathy in PLWH

Dr. Matthew Painschab is the Director of Adult Oncology Research at UNC Project Malawi Assistant Professor of Medicine-Hematology at UNC Chapel Hill

Dr. Javeria Aijaz – Addressing Technical and Logistic Challenges: Nanopore Sequencing for Pediatric Acute Leukemia in Low Resource-Setting 

Dr. Javeria Aijaz is currently working as the Head of Molecular Pathology at Indus Hospital & Health Network, in Karachi, Pakistan. IHHN is a countrywide, private network of health care services in Pakistan with the mission to provide quality care at no charge to the patient. Dr. Aijaz oversees both clinical diagnostics and research in her field at IHHN.

Bong’eni David Chipole – The Role of Cancer Registry in Fight Against Cancer

Bong’eni is a supervisor cancer registrar at Lilongwe cancer registry and a medical laboratory technologist in the UNC/KCH pathology laboratory. Bong’eni has worked with Lilongwe cancer registry since its establishment in 2018. He is trained in cancer registration by Blantyre cancer (Malawi), Nairobi (Kenya) and Eldoret (Kenya) cancer registries.

Dr. Nickhill Bhakta – Ensuring Trust and Rigor in Globally Adapted Guidelines: The ARIA Guide Collaboration for Childhood Cancers

Nickhill Bhakta, MD, MPH is an Associate Member in the Department of Global Pediatric Medicine at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Within the St. Jude Global Program, Dr. Bhakta serves as the Regional Director of the Sub-Saharan Africa Program where he coordinates capacity building initiatives. Additionally, as Director of the Disease Burden and Simulation Unit, Dr. Bhakta runs an epidemiology and health economics research program focusing on global disease burden, multimorbidity research and cost-effectiveness. His other primary implementation roles at St. Jude include leading the SJCARES Global Hospital-Based Cancer Registry Network and co-Directing the ARIA Guide and Adapted Management Guideline initiative in collaboration with SIOP.