Khaled Mahmoud El-Shami, MBChB

Dr. Benjamin Levy is a thoracic medical oncologist and the clinical director of medical oncology for the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital, as well as an associate professor of oncology for Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He practices out of the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital. Dr. Levy is a physician scientist who is interested in innovative immunotherapeutic approaches for advanced stage lung cancer patients and biomarkers that help define those patients more likely to respond to such agents. He has an expertise in thoracic malignancies, including non-small cell lung cancer, small cell lung cancer and thymic malignancies, as well as head and neck cancer. Dr. Levy earned his medical degree from Medical College of Georgia. He completed an internal medicine residency at Georgetown University Hospital, followed by a hematology/oncology fellowship at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he received the Department of Medicine Research Fellow of the Year Award and the 2009 American Society of Clinical Oncology Young Investigator Award for his clinical research in prostate cancer. Dr. Levy previously worked as an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine, medical director of thoracic oncology for Mount Sinai Health Systems and associate director of the Cancer Clinical Trials Office for Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Dr. Levy played an integral role on several American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) committees and currently serves as associate editor for the ASCO University Committee. He completed a two year term on the editorial board for the Journal of Clinical Oncology and currently serves as an ad hoc reviewer for other journals, including Clinical Lung Cancer, The Oncologist and Oncotarget. Dr. Levy was recently selected as one of only 15 oncologists in the country to the prestigious ASCO Leadership Development program, whose mission is to identify and develop future leaders of ASCO. In addition to his ASCO commitments, Dr. Levy serves on the ALLIANCE Respiratory Committee, the IASLC Staging Committee and the IASLC Career Development & Fellowship Committee.

Dr. Lipson is an internationally-recognized skin cancer and immunotherapy specialist at Johns Hopkins. He received his medical degree in 2005 from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, where he graduated with distinction in research. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and completed a Medical Oncology fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.Dr. Lipson leads cutting edge clinical trials for patients with melanoma and other skin cancers. As a member of the Johns Hopkins Melanoma and Cancer Immunology Programs, he focuses on evaluating novel therapies for patients with high-risk or advanced disease. Dr. Lipson’s publications include the first reports of organ transplant recipients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors for advanced cancer, and the first description of kidney retransplantation performed after immunotherapy–related organ rejection. Based on his published work, Dr. Lipson initiated a clinical trial testing a novel combination of immune-based therapies for kidney transplant recipients with advanced selected cancers. Results from this trial - the first of its kind - were reported in 2022 at an international oncology meeting.Dr. Lipson is a leader in the clinical development of relatlimab, an antibody blocking the LAG-3 immune checkpoint. He leads a phase 2 trial testing combination immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy—including anti-LAG-3—for patients with advanced basal cell carcinoma. In June 2021, Dr. Lipson presented findings from the first phase 3 study establishing the LAG-3 pathway as the third immune checkpoint pathway in history, after CTLA-4 and PD-1, for which blockade has clinical benefit. This trial supported the FDA's approval of a new therapy for patients with advanced melanoma.In addition to his research activities, Dr. Lipson is an educator in the field of cancer immunotherapy. Many of his lectures focus on the management of immune-mediated drug toxicities associated with novel cancer drugs. Dr. Lipson conducts regular clinical practices in Baltimore, Maryland and at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. as part of the multidisciplinary Melanoma Program at Johns Hopkins.