During Thursdays plenary session, Susan O’Brien, MD, will receive the Michael J. Keating Outstanding Achievement Award, an honor bestowed by her peers on the SOHO Board of Directors and the society’s Steering Committee.
“I am thrilled and honored to receive this award from SOHO,” Dr. O’Brien wrote in an email. “It is particularly apt that this award is named after Dr. Michael Keating. He was one of my first mentors and helped me develop my career in CLL, which, over the years, has been so interesting and rewarding.”
Dr. O’Brien, a founding member of the society, has contributed far beyond her scientific expertise. Known for her dedication and commitment to the field, she has supported SOHO’s growth and mission since the society’s earliest days.
“Dr. O’Brien has consistently gone above and beyond whenever we’ve asked for her help,” SOHO Executive Director Janet M. Cesak, MBA, BS, said. “She believes deeply in SOHO’s mission and in what we’re trying to accomplish, and she’s always been willing to pitch in and support the organization.”
The current chair of the International Workshop on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (iwCLL), Dr. O’Brien is internationally recognized for her contributions to advancing the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), guiding the field from an era dominated by chemotherapy to one defined by targeted therapies that have dramatically improved outcomes for patients.
“Dr. O’Brien has been an outstanding leader in leukemia research and has transformed the care of patients with CLL worldwide,” said Guillermo Garcia-Manero, MD, a member of the SOHO Board of Directors and incoming editor-in-chief of SOHO Insider.
The iwCLL describes Dr. O’Brien as “a leading leukemia expert worldwide” and ranks her among the top 1% of the world’s most highly cited and influential researchers. She has authored more than 900 peer-reviewed publications and has played a central role in developing therapies that changed clinical practice.
A role model for women in hematology
When Dr. O’Brien started her career, treatment options for patients with CLL were limited, and women were uncommon in leadership positions in academic hematology.
“She came into the field at a time when there really weren’t that many women,” said Catherine Coombs, MD, a hematologist-oncologist at the University of California, Irvine.
Although women have made significant strides in hematology and oncology over the past several decades, leadership positions remain disproportionately held by men. A 2020 report published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that women comprised fewer than 40% of academic faculty in hematology and oncology and only about one-fifth of full professorships1.
“I think she’s a role model for many women in the field, where sometimes it’s hard to speak up,” Dr. Coombs said.
Speaking of Dr. O’Brien’s candid and straightforward communication style, Dr. Coombs said that Dr. O’Brien’s expertise and scientific rigor allowed her to command respect in rooms that were dominated by men.
“Susan’s a role model because she knows what she’s talking about and has that expertise,” Dr. Coombs said. “A lot of the work she’s done for so many years of being in a minority has paved the way for women like me and many others in CLL to have that seat at the table.”
A reputation built on scientific rigor
By the time William Wierda, MD, became a fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he currently serves as a professor of medicine and CLL section chief, Dr. O’ Brien had already established herself as one of the leading investigators in leukemia research.
He said he first knew of Dr. O’Brien through her research and publications before he joined the institution in 2001.
“Susan has been one of my mentors from early on in my career,” Dr. Wierda said. “She mentored me in clinical trials and in reporting clinical research, and I have always admired her clinical insights and expertise.”
Dr. Wierda recalled that Dr. O’Brien first helped advance chemoimmunotherapy, including early work with rituximab-based chemoimmunotherapy regimens, before becoming a leader in the clinical development of targeted therapies.
She was instrumental in enrolling the first patient in the first clinical trial of the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib, a clinical trial that she helped design. Ibrutinib would go onto become a game-changing and life-changing therapy for patients with CLL.
“It was a remarkable time,” Dr. Wierda said of the early ibrutinib studies. “To see patients with very refractory disease, who really had no further treatment options, respond to ibrutinib was extraordinary. It wasn’t curative, but it fundamentally changed how we managed the disease.”
Although she was part of advancing ibrutinib, Dr. Wierda said he most closely associates Dr. O’Brien with the early clinical development of ibrutinib’s successor acalabrutinib, where she designed and led clinical trials of the therapy.
“I would associate her even more strongly with the development of acalabrutinib,” Dr. Wierda said. “She certainly was very important in those early studies.”
Acalabrutinib, a more selective BTK inhibitor than ibrutinib, expanded treatment options for patients while reducing some treatment-related side effects associated with ibrutinib.
Dr. O’Brien also contributed to the understanding of the benefits and limitations of the PI3K inhibitor idelalisib, one of the first targeted therapies that could be used to treat patients without chemotherapy. However, the drug’s safety prevented it from becoming a blockbuster therapy.
“She was very important in terms of the challenges we had with idelalisib development,” Dr. Wierda said. “It had activity, but there was a lot of toxicity with it. She was helpful in reporting that and bringing that to light with that drug.”
When Dr. Coombs completed her fellowship in 2016, targeted therapies were replacing chemotherapy as the standard approach for many patients with CLL.
“The use of novel agents has largely been routine practice for my entire medical career,” Dr. Coombs said. “Dr. O’Brien is one of the people who really helped make that transition through all the trials she has done.”
Beyond science
Beyond her scientific accomplishments, colleagues consistently describe Dr. O’Brien as a trusted mentor and a direct communicator.
“You always know where you stand with her,” Dr. Wierda said. “She will always share her frank opinion with you. That’s something I’ve always valued.”
Elias Jabbour, MD, of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, who has known Dr. O’Brien for more than 25 years, describes a colleague who can be blunt and tough, but whose directness is matched by courage and a strong sense of justice.
“She is one of the kindest and most generous people I know,” Dr. Jabbour said. “She is smart, inventive and fearless, never afraid to support an underdog or an unpopular opinion if she believes it is the right thing to do. Her sense of justice and ability to cut through to the crux of an issue have made her an invaluable resource to her patients, colleagues, and many friends.”
Despite her international reputation as a clinical investigator, colleagues say Dr. O’Brien has never lost sight of the individual patient.
The 2023 nonfiction book by Nathan Vardi, For Blood and Money: Billionaires, Biotech, and the Quest for a Blockbuster Drug, recounts how Dr. O’Brien personally monitored the first patient treated with ibrutinib for weeks, carefully following every aspect of the patient’s care.2
In a more recent example, while caring for another patient who had transferred into her practice, Dr. Coombs later learned that Dr. O’Brien had spent hours working directly with a pharmaceutical company to ensure that the patient maintained access to a therapy after a clinical trial was closing.
“I remember she spent hours advocating for this patient,” Dr. Coombs said. “I’ll never forget that. This is a patient whose care I had largely taken over because he could only go to one site, and it wasn’t the site where she practiced. It really showed me that she’s in it for the patient.”
Dr. O’Brien never sought recognition for her efforts. “She was just looking to do the right thing,” Dr. Coombs said.
Dr. Wierda described Dr. O’Brien in much the same way: “She’s always been a very staunch patient advocate and patient supporter. She’s very well-liked by her patients.”
1 See Riaz IB, Siddiqi R, Zahid U, et al. Gender differences in faculty rank and leadership positions among hematologists and oncologists in the United States. JCO Oncol Pract. 2020;16(6):e507-e516. doi:10.1200/OP.19.00255
2 Nathan Vardi, For Blood and Money: Billionaires, Biotech, and the Quest for a Blockbuster Drug (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2023).
Leah Sherwood is the Editorial Director of SOHO Insider.
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