For Dr. Valerie Malyvanh Jansen, it’s all about the passion and the purpose to help. It’s what physician-scientists focus on. “What we do is hard. Most drugs don’t make it, but we keep on trying.” 

Jansen has been named to serve on the Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation Scientific Advisory Board. 

“Dr. Jansen is a noted physician, scientist and drug developer,” said Nicholas A. Saccomano, Ph.D., and the chair of the SAB. “She brings a unique near-patient perspective and set of clinical insights to the Board.” 

Jansen’s story is unique and inspiring.

Just two and a half years old at the time, Valerie Phoukhaokham Malyvanh and her family embarked on what would be a perilous middle-of-the-night canoe journey to cross the wide and fast-moving Mekong River from the jungles of Laos into Thailand. As young as she was, her memory of that escape is vivid. 

Once across, she and her family would spend several years in refugee camps in Thailand and later in the Philippines. Her courage and resilience were already tested, and she would begin her life. She was six when her family arrived in the U.S. They joined other extended family and settled in Tennessee. “I spoke not a word of English. Now I speak English with a Southern accent,” she was quoted as saying in a video that celebrates her accomplishments. 

In Laos, her father was a college-educated professional civil engineer but, in the States, she explained, those degrees “didn’t amount to anything in the U.S.” He and her mother worked blue-collar, factory, minimum wage jobs. Seeing and modeling her parents instilled in her a strong work ethic and a respect for education. In high school, she excelled in STEM and was the valedictorian of her graduating class. 

She chose Maryville College to earn her undergraduate degree, but only after her father confirmed with a chemistry professor that a degree from the liberal arts school would enable her to attend Vanderbilt Medical School.

At Maryville, she excelled and was invited to participate in a practicum at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she was involved in creating a patent. Participating in research, one part of her trajectory was set. 

After graduating from Maryville in 2001, she embarked on another rigorous journey. She earned her MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and her PhD in Molecular Sciences from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine, and fellowship in Medical Oncology, through the American Board of Internal Medicine Physician-Scientist Research Pathway at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. 

Dr. Valerie Malyvanh Jansen is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. She’s a physician-scientist with a decade-plus of experience in medicine and oncology drug development. As a Vanderbilt University faculty member, she was in the lab and in the clinic. Her approach was what she described as the bench-to-bedside model. 

“Being an oncologist as well as a scientist, I see patients in the clinic, in hospital inpatient units. I see the patients, the families, the loved ones. That motivates me in the lab. In the clinic, I'm affecting one patient at a time. In the laboratory, in research, I can have an even larger impact and potentially help many people at once. Her goal is to “understand why cancer meds stop working.”

“Treating patients in the clinic and mice in the lab, that’s the bench to bedside and back,” she said. “When things go well in the clinic, it’s good. But if cancer treatment meds stop responding, I am very motivated in the lab to find new meds to overcome how the cancer has outsmarted the previous med.”

“It’s my motivating factor,” she said. “Having lost really young patients, young teachers, and mothers like me who may not see their kids grow up, has motivated me to work hard in the lab.” 

Dr. Jansen works to “understand mechanisms of resistance to cancer-targeted therapies with the bench-to-bedside model.” 

She has co-authored research articles and has been honored with research awards and fellowships. Those include a Susan G. Komen Postdoctoral Fellowship, the AACR Women in Cancer Research Scholar Award, an ASCO Young Investigator Award, and the SABCS Clinical Scholars Award.

According to her CV, before joining Elevation Oncology, she was Executive Medical Director at Mersana Therapeutics, where she served as the medical lead for the clinical development of antibody-drug conjugates. Before that post, she was Senior Medical Advisor at Eli Lilly, where she led global translational science for Abemaciclib, a drug that studies have shown “can reduce the risk of recurrence in patients with early breast cancer.” She also served as the lead Clinical Research Physician on early and late-phase clinical trials. 

Now, she is a member of the OnKure Therapeutics Board of Directors, working with President and CEO, Saccomano. Read more about Saccamano here.

Jansen credits “great mentors along the way” for her success; her professors and people like Saccamano.

“I often say it. Nick had no reason to put me on the OnKure board. I’m so grateful he gave me the opportunity. It’s always hard to get your first board appointment.”

Speaking about her appointment to the Foundation’s SAB, she said she’s thrilled to serve and added that she “wants to do even more.”

“I want to be more involved to the extent that I can give back and continue to support the next generation of physician-scientists.”