Sarah Cannon Promotes Melissa Johnson to Program Director, Lung Cancer Research

Melissa L. Johnson, MD

Sarah Cannon announced the promotion of Melissa Johnson, MD, to Program Director of Lung Cancer Research. In her new role, Dr. Johnson will lead the lung cancer clinical trial portfolio across the Sarah Cannon network.

“Since joining Sarah Cannon, Dr. Johnson’s contributions to research have helped transform the treatment options available to patients facing lung cancer,” said David Spigel, MD, chief scientific officer, Sarah Cannon. “As Program Director of Lung Cancer Research, Dr. Johnson will continue to help advance therapies for our patients today and in the future.”

Since joining Sarah Cannon in 2014, Dr. Johnson has served as the Associate Director of Lung Cancer Research at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, supporting the growth of early phase compounds in thoracic malignancies. Sarah Cannon Research Institute is one of the world’s leading clinical research organizations conducting community-based clinical trials throughout the United States and United Kingdom.

Dr. Johnson will continue to work in early phase drug development as well as lead the Solid Tumor Immune Effector Cellular Therapy Program at Sarah Cannon. She also currently serves as the Chair of the Cancer Committee at TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. Dr. Johnson served as the Scientific Committee Program Chair for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in 2020.

Dr. Johnson received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill where she was a Morehead Scholar, and her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her residency in internal medicine at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and her fellowship in medical oncology and hematology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where she also served as chief fellow for one year. She spent four years as a faculty member at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University and Feinberg School of Medicine, where she was a founding member of the Northwestern Medical Developmental Therapeutics Institute.

Dr. Johnson will officially begin her position in January 2021 at Sarah Cannon headquarters in Nashville, Tenn. She will continue to care for patients as a partner with Tennessee Oncology, PLLC.

About Sarah Cannon Research Institute
Sarah Cannon Research Institute is the research arm of HCA Healthcare’s global cancer institute, Sarah Cannon. Focused on advancing therapies for patients, it is one of the world’s leading clinical research organizations conducting community-based clinical trials throughout the United States and United Kingdom. Sarah Cannon’s network of strategic sites includes hundreds of physicians who engage in research. The organization has led more than 450 first-in-human clinical trials since its inception in 1993, and has been a clinical trial leader in the majority of approved cancer therapies over the last 10 years. Additionally, Sarah Cannon offers management, regulatory, and other research support services for drug development and industry sponsors as well as strategic investigator sites through its contract research organization (CRO), Sarah Cannon Development Innovations. For more information about Sarah Cannon and the latest news from across the network, visit http://sarahcannon.com/about/newsroom.