Providing hope to cholangiocarcinoma patients through funding research, mentoring, and advocacy
The Craine Team
David Craine
Co-Founder
Craine’s Cholangiocarcinoma Crew
David is the Area Manager at DeNora Tech Inc. Prior to joining DeNora Tech, David was President of American Way Manufacturing. David has over 30 years of experience as a Manufacturing Executive. David earned a Bachelor of Science in Manufacturing Engineering from Miami University and his MBA from Kent State University. David is married to Lisa and lives in Bath Ohio with their two sons, Jacob and Noah.
Lisa Craine
Co-Founder
Craine’s Cholangiocarcinoma Crew
Lisa was Vice President of Superior Search Group for over 20 years, prior to being diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma in 2010. Lisa earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre and a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Kent State University. She is a graduate of Leadership Akron and served as class Vice President. Lisa has completed Advocacy training with The Research Advocacy Network, The Global Liver Institute AAADV, ASCO and The Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation. Her mentoring training was completed through The Scott Hamilton Cares Initiative. She is a board member of The Voice of the Patient Advocacy Council for the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center and The MIke Shane Memorial Foundation. Lisa is a George H.W. Bush Points of Light Award recipient and has been honored by the White House for her volunteer service. Lisa is married to David and lives in Bath, Ohio with their two sons, Jacob and Noah.
Jacob Craine
CMO & Co-Founder
Vigeo Gardens
Jacob is the founder and owner of Vigeo Gardens, a vertical hydroponic organic farm in Akron, Ohio. Jacob, along with his two business partners, started Vigeo Gardens in an 800 square foot space and have grown to over 20,000 square feet of indoor farming. As a young entrepreneur, Jacob is involved with everything from farming, marketing, sales and finance to speaking to students at local schools. Vigeo Gardens is proud to provide responsibly grown produce without the use of chemicals and pesticides. Jacob is engaged and lives in Akron, Ohio.
Noah Craine
Noah earned his Bachelor of Business Administration from The University of Cincinnati, Carl H. Lindner College of Business, graduating with highest honors. Noah studied abroad in Spain taking classes in international business management and international marketing. He is currently pursuing his Masters in Marketing from The University of Cincinnati. Noah has worked as an intern at Jobs for Ohio Grads, Homesite Insurance and Focal Point Marketing.
Our Medical Advisory Board
Dr. Milind Javle
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Milind Javle is a clinician, educator and investigator with over 12 years’ experience in treating cholangiocarcinoma. He is an Attending Physician and Professor, GI Medical Oncology at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is also the Chair of the NCI Task Force in Hepatobiliary Cancers and the Former Chair, International Cholangiocarcinoma Research Network. He is an Executive Member, Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation and the Co-Chair, Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) Hepatobiliary Committee. He graduated from the Grant Medical College in Mumbai, did his residency and fellowship at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY and has been at MD Anderson since 2007. He resides in Houston with his family and has two children. He loves reading, listening, traveling and music.
Dr. Mohamed Abazeed
Northwestern Medical Group
Dr. Abazeed is a radiation oncologist and physician scientist who uses trans-omic approaches in order to improve the personalization of cancer treatments. His clinical research efforts are focused on improving therapies for thoracic cancers, including the initiation of investigator-initiated theranostic studies. He has made several contributions to identifying tumor mutations that predict resistance to therapy. Using his training and background in computational biology, genetics, and imaging, he has also applied and developed tools to advance approaches for personalized cancer treatment, especially for patients treated with ionizing radiation. His cancer biology research efforts are focused on improving our understanding of tumor development and overcoming treatment resistance. Supporting his group’s translational efforts is the development of large-scale clinomic datasets (~1000 cases) that integrate detailed clinical information, patient-derived xenografts, and genomic features. His team routinely employs tools from genomics, bioinformatics, computational modeling, and tumor biology in their work. Dr. Abazeed is currently an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, the Scientific Director of the Lung Cancer Program, and the inaugural Director of the Center for Precision Radiotherapy in the Department of Radiation Oncology. He received his MD/PhD degrees from the University of Michigan with a research focus in genetics. During his residency training at the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program, he was the Leonard B. Holman Research Fellow and conducted his training at the Broad Institute, a global leader in cancer genomics.
Dr. Bassam Estfan
Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute
Dr. Bassam Estfan is a medical graduate from Damascus University. He completed his fellowship training in palliative medicine and oncology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Dr. Estfan is a staff of gastrointestinal oncology at the Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute, and an assistant professor in the Case Western/Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. His interests are in education and primary and secondary malignancies of the liver, pancreas cancer, and neuroendocrine tumors.
Dr. Kevin Lee Stephans
Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute
Dr. Stephans is a Radiation Oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute specializing in Gastrointestinal Cancer, Thoracic Cancer and Urologic Cancer. Assistant Professor, Medicine(Radiation Oncology) Cleveland Clinic, Lerner College of Medicine.
Dr. John Fung
University of Chicago Medicine
With more than 30 years of experience, John Fung, MD, PhD, is a renowned leader in the field of organ transplantation, including liver, kidney, pancreas, islet and intestinal transplantation. Dr. Fung also performs procedures for bile duct cancer and obstruction, gallbladder and biliary tract diseases and hepatobiliary malignancies.
Dr. Fung has spearheaded the use of new minimally invasive surgical transplant techniques. Additionally, he's an accomplished immunologist and has introduced procedures to improve donor organ preservation.
Dr. Fung has a longstanding research interest in transplantation immunology, immunosuppression therapy and liver related immunology. He has published more than 1,000 articles and book chapters, serves on the editorial board for several medical journals and was the former editor-in-chief for Liver Transplantation.
Dr. Fung's dedication to innovation and delivering the highest level of patient care is recognized through his consistent appearance on the "America's Top Doctors" and "Best Doctors in America" lists.
Dr. Fung was one of the physicians leaders of the transplant care team that made history in December 2018 after performing two triple-organ transplants within 27 hours.
Dr. Renuka Iyer
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
Renuka Iyer MD is Professor of Oncology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY where she focuses on multidisciplinary care and clinical research of patients with gastrointestinal cancers and runs a translational research program in hepatobiliary and neuroendocrine cancers. She got her medical degree from Grant Medical College, University of Bombay, India, postdoctoral research at Fox Chase cancer center, Philadelphia, Internal medicine residency at Lincoln Medical Center and Cornell Weill School of Medicine, NY and Fellowship in Medical Oncology at Roswell Park, Buffalo before joining the faculty at Roswell Park in 2004. She is the Section Chief of The GI Medical Oncology Division and Co-Leader of the Liver and Pancreas Tumor Program. She also serves on the NCCN and ASCO Hepatobiliary cancer treatment guidelines panels and is Co-Chair of the NANETs Annual Meeting Committee. She is actively involved in activities of The Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation and in novel clinical trials, research and awareness in biliary cancer.
Dr. William R. Jarnagin
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Dr. William R. Jarnagin was raised outside of Boston, Massachusetts and earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Dartmouth College in 1982, a Master’s degree in chemistry from Brandeis University in 1984 and an MD from Rush Medical College in 1988. He completed his training in general surgery at the University of California, San Francisco in 1996. From 1990-93, he completed a research fellowship at the Liver Center Laboratory at San Francisco General Hospital. From 1996-97, he served as the Hepatobiliary Fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Since 1997, he has been an attending surgeon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he has served as Chief of the Hepatopancreatobiliary Service since 2008 and was a Vice-Chairman of the Department of Surgery from 2006-2010. He holds the Leslie H. Blumgart, M.D. Chair in Surgical Oncology and is Professor of Surgery at Weill Medical College of Cornell University.
Dr. Jarnagin’s research has focused on genomics, novel therapies and biomarkers of treatment response in patients with biliary tract cancer, intraoperative navigation systems, and improvements in intraoperative management during major liver and pancreas resection. He has authored or co-authored nearly 500 articles in peer-reviewed journals, over 75 book chapters or invited reviews and has co-edited four textbooks. He serves as the senior editor of ‘Blumgart’s Surgery of the Liver, Biliary Tract and Pancreas.’ He has served as the HPB Section Editor for Annals of Surgical Oncology and is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, HPB and the European Journal of Surgical Research. In addition to the IHPBA and AHPBA, he is a member of several surgical societies, including SUS and ASA. He was a member of the AHPBA Executive Council for over 10 years, serving as the Program Chair (2007-08), Treasurer (2009-11), President (2011-2012), and he currently serves as Treasurer of the IHPBA.
Dr. Talia Baker
University of Utah Health/ Huntsman Cancer Institute
Talia Baker, MD is the Chief, Division of Transplant and Advanced Hepatobiliary Surgery at the University of Utah Health/ Huntsman Cancer Institute. She is a nationally recognized leader in living donor liver transplant and the treatment of liver tumors. Her clinical passion is in developing multidisciplinary downstaging approaches to Cholangiocarcinoma (intrahepatic, perihilar and hilar) to ultimate surgical options including complex resections and transplant.
Dr Baker is an active researcher. Her scholarly work focuses on liver transplant topics including downstaging complex hepatobiliary tumors to resection and living donor transplant (liver transplant oncology).
