Mentoring the Next Generation of GU Oncology Leaders - Andrea Apolo
April 10, 2025
Zachary Klaassen speaks with Andrea Apolo about co-chairing the inaugural GU Early Thought Leaders Conference. Dr. Apolo explains why such career-focused events are vital, noting that the transition from fellowship to independent faculty represents one of the most challenging career phases. Unlike traditional scientific meetings, this conference focused on personal journeys, practical career advice, and networking opportunities for approximately 75 early-career attendees. Both physicians emphasize the value of hearing established leaders share their non-linear career paths, struggles, and solutions across academia, industry, and government. The conference covered diverse topics including clinical trial development, work-life balance, job negotiations, and leadership skills. Dr. Apolo expresses hope that this will become an ongoing program where future leaders can connect, learn from others' experiences, and realize they're not alone in facing career challenges.
Biographies:
Andrea Apolo, MD, Senior Investigator, Head, Bladder Cancer Section of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch, Director of the Bladder Cancer and Genitourinary Tumors Multidisciplinary Clinic, Cancer Research of the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD
Zachary Klaassen, MD, MSc, Urologic Oncologist, Assistant Professor Surgery/Urology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, Well Star MCG, Georgia Cancer Center, Augusta, GA
Biographies:
Andrea Apolo, MD, Senior Investigator, Head, Bladder Cancer Section of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch, Director of the Bladder Cancer and Genitourinary Tumors Multidisciplinary Clinic, Cancer Research of the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD
Zachary Klaassen, MD, MSc, Urologic Oncologist, Assistant Professor Surgery/Urology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, Well Star MCG, Georgia Cancer Center, Augusta, GA
This webpage is supported by Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Bayer is not involved in content development and the views expressed represent those of the physician and or patient contributors.
Read the Full Video Transcript
Zachary Klaassen: Hi, my name is Zach Klaassen, urologic oncologist at the Georgia Cancer Center in Augusta, Georgia. I'm pleased to be joined on UroToday by Dr. Andrea Apolo, who is a medical oncologist at the NCI in Washington, DC. Andrea, thanks very much for joining us today.
Andrea Apolo: Well, thanks so much for having me. This is great. I'm a big fan of UroToday, and anytime I get a chance to talk with you, I love it.
Zachary Klaassen: Awesome to have you on. I know you're super busy, so we appreciate some time to chat about what really was a fun program in March, 2025. You and I got to be the cochairs, I guess the comoderators, of the first GU Early Thought Leaders Conference, which is hosted by Cosens and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
We had great industry support to pull this meeting off. We had roughly about 75 attendees, 12 to 14 faculty. And you and I got to have some fun and I guess run the show, so to speak. So my first question is really—I mean, we have a lot of commitments. Why was this such a no-brainer to basically say yes to hosting this inaugural event?
Andrea Apolo: Yeah. So doing a meeting like this where we focus not on the science as much as, really, our journey through our careers—from early investigators transitioning to independent faculty—it’s a really difficult time in your life where there’s just so much going on, and you don’t know where to start.
And I think it’s important to have these kinds of meetings to support our young faculty who are hoping to have careers in academia, in industry, in government, all these different possibilities. And it was really nice to go through the whole scope of everything. This was such a fun meeting.
And we do a lot of other meeting organizing such as ASCO GU, ASCO, BCAN, all these meetings that are very important in our field in order to advance the science and present the work. But I think we need to dedicate a little bit more time into the growth of the early investigators and the journey and how to get them through this process, because it’s hard.
Zachary Klaassen: And there’s no right or wrong way to do it. And I think hopefully the people that attended, and even the faculty as well—I mean, I learned as much as they probably did. This is a journey that is never perfect. It’s always personal. And I thought—there’s a lot of adjectives I use to describe it. “Fun” was definitely one of them. I think “energizing” was another one. But maybe a couple take-home sort of memories that you had from the meeting that weekend.
Andrea Apolo: Yeah. So I loved meeting all the young faculty and hearing about their journeys, where they are right now, and where they hope to be. And on a personal level, in the one-on-ones, we had a couple of meet-and-greet events.
It was really nice to talk with them and walk them through our journey and hear about their hopes and aspirations and really guide them as much as we can from our knowledge as we stumbled through it, show them that there’s no straight path and that there’s a lot of complicated situations that you have to go through. But you get through them, and kind of providing those tools for them to get through that.
Zachary Klaassen: No, absolutely. I think the plan is that this is not a one-off and that we’ll have future events in the next coming years. Why do you think it’s important to keep doing this and to bring a new 75 or 100 young career folks to a meeting like this?
Andrea Apolo: Yeah. I think this is, like I said, a hard time. To me, it was one of the hardest times that I’ve had in my career is when I transitioned. Being a fellow was terrific because there’s all these things you want to do, you don’t really know how to start them. And then when you start early in being a faculty, it’s hard to know how to prioritize your efforts and your time.
So I really like the sections where a lot of the faculty shared their journey. We talked about a lot of obstacles and things they had to overcome and learn to work through. I think that was really—to me, it was very helpful to hear—even now as where I am right now, sometimes you just feel like you’re alone and you’re going through this and no one else is going through a similar situation. So it was really reassuring to hear all of their journeys. So I think sharing that with young faculty is helpful so they feel that they’re not alone and that we all go through this.
Zachary Klaassen: I think some of the best feedback I got was the people that you see on ASCO stages and ESMO stages and hearing their personal journey and putting a personal story to how they got to where they are today, and I think that’s important. I think that’s something we’ll certainly incorporate even more hopefully in future meetings.
So I think as we wrap up this meeting and certainly look forward to future events, there may be, hopefully, somebody listening to us that would consider applying to next year. What would your message be? And why should they take the time to, A, fill out the application and, B, take a weekend to come hang out?
Andrea Apolo: Yeah, I think this is a different kind of meeting where you get to meet faculty that are very prominent in their fields and learn their tricks that they did in order to get to where they are and how they manage things. I love the scope of how we set up the meeting. We had a section on developing clinical trials and prioritizing your research. We had folks from industry talk about their journey through industry and how they—or how they went from academia to industry, entrepreneurs.
And I thought the topics were really great that we had: how to land a first job, how to negotiate a job, work-life balance, leadership in medicine. I mean, really great topics. So I think participating in a meeting where you get to see the other side of medicine and the personal side is very important.
And it is a great opportunity to meet your colleagues too. So we encouraged all of the participants to exchange their contact information, sit at different tables during each meeting so you can meet other people, and also ask questions and participate. And it was very engaging, so that was really great. I think it was a great meeting, and I really look forward to having another one.
Zachary Klaassen: Absolutely. I totally agree. Any final remarks, any concluding statements for our listeners today?
Andrea Apolo: No. I think we had a really great group, and they were so engaged, they were so curious. And they did a great job networking and coming up and introducing themselves and going up to the microphone and asking questions. I mean, it was really fun, and I hope that we get more folks in the later years as we continue to run this, applying, and making this kind of a part of their meetings that they attend.
And I went to this meeting back when I was first starting—it just becomes part of their training as they go through. Because I think it’s important, again, to nurture really the folks that are going to be running the show in five to 10 years from now.
Zachary Klaassen: That’s right. No, absolutely. It’s easy to pat ourselves on the back as cochairs, but it really was a fun weekend. The feedback’s been fun. I hope we get invited to at least attend, if not run it again in the future. So it was a lot of fun working with you and getting to know you, and it’s going to be fun to see how this sort of evolves over the next couple of years. So thanks so much for joining us and spreading your thoughts and sharing them on UroToday.
Andrea Apolo: It was so much fun to work with you. Yeah. I got to know you a little bit better and kind of see the personal side of you. And it was a lot of fun.
Zachary Klaassen: It was a lot of fun.
Andrea Apolo: Ditto.
Zachary Klaassen: Thanks so much, Andrea. Take care.
Andrea Apolo: All right. Bye.
Zachary Klaassen: Hi, my name is Zach Klaassen, urologic oncologist at the Georgia Cancer Center in Augusta, Georgia. I'm pleased to be joined on UroToday by Dr. Andrea Apolo, who is a medical oncologist at the NCI in Washington, DC. Andrea, thanks very much for joining us today.
Andrea Apolo: Well, thanks so much for having me. This is great. I'm a big fan of UroToday, and anytime I get a chance to talk with you, I love it.
Zachary Klaassen: Awesome to have you on. I know you're super busy, so we appreciate some time to chat about what really was a fun program in March, 2025. You and I got to be the cochairs, I guess the comoderators, of the first GU Early Thought Leaders Conference, which is hosted by Cosens and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
We had great industry support to pull this meeting off. We had roughly about 75 attendees, 12 to 14 faculty. And you and I got to have some fun and I guess run the show, so to speak. So my first question is really—I mean, we have a lot of commitments. Why was this such a no-brainer to basically say yes to hosting this inaugural event?
Andrea Apolo: Yeah. So doing a meeting like this where we focus not on the science as much as, really, our journey through our careers—from early investigators transitioning to independent faculty—it’s a really difficult time in your life where there’s just so much going on, and you don’t know where to start.
And I think it’s important to have these kinds of meetings to support our young faculty who are hoping to have careers in academia, in industry, in government, all these different possibilities. And it was really nice to go through the whole scope of everything. This was such a fun meeting.
And we do a lot of other meeting organizing such as ASCO GU, ASCO, BCAN, all these meetings that are very important in our field in order to advance the science and present the work. But I think we need to dedicate a little bit more time into the growth of the early investigators and the journey and how to get them through this process, because it’s hard.
Zachary Klaassen: And there’s no right or wrong way to do it. And I think hopefully the people that attended, and even the faculty as well—I mean, I learned as much as they probably did. This is a journey that is never perfect. It’s always personal. And I thought—there’s a lot of adjectives I use to describe it. “Fun” was definitely one of them. I think “energizing” was another one. But maybe a couple take-home sort of memories that you had from the meeting that weekend.
Andrea Apolo: Yeah. So I loved meeting all the young faculty and hearing about their journeys, where they are right now, and where they hope to be. And on a personal level, in the one-on-ones, we had a couple of meet-and-greet events.
It was really nice to talk with them and walk them through our journey and hear about their hopes and aspirations and really guide them as much as we can from our knowledge as we stumbled through it, show them that there’s no straight path and that there’s a lot of complicated situations that you have to go through. But you get through them, and kind of providing those tools for them to get through that.
Zachary Klaassen: No, absolutely. I think the plan is that this is not a one-off and that we’ll have future events in the next coming years. Why do you think it’s important to keep doing this and to bring a new 75 or 100 young career folks to a meeting like this?
Andrea Apolo: Yeah. I think this is, like I said, a hard time. To me, it was one of the hardest times that I’ve had in my career is when I transitioned. Being a fellow was terrific because there’s all these things you want to do, you don’t really know how to start them. And then when you start early in being a faculty, it’s hard to know how to prioritize your efforts and your time.
So I really like the sections where a lot of the faculty shared their journey. We talked about a lot of obstacles and things they had to overcome and learn to work through. I think that was really—to me, it was very helpful to hear—even now as where I am right now, sometimes you just feel like you’re alone and you’re going through this and no one else is going through a similar situation. So it was really reassuring to hear all of their journeys. So I think sharing that with young faculty is helpful so they feel that they’re not alone and that we all go through this.
Zachary Klaassen: I think some of the best feedback I got was the people that you see on ASCO stages and ESMO stages and hearing their personal journey and putting a personal story to how they got to where they are today, and I think that’s important. I think that’s something we’ll certainly incorporate even more hopefully in future meetings.
So I think as we wrap up this meeting and certainly look forward to future events, there may be, hopefully, somebody listening to us that would consider applying to next year. What would your message be? And why should they take the time to, A, fill out the application and, B, take a weekend to come hang out?
Andrea Apolo: Yeah, I think this is a different kind of meeting where you get to meet faculty that are very prominent in their fields and learn their tricks that they did in order to get to where they are and how they manage things. I love the scope of how we set up the meeting. We had a section on developing clinical trials and prioritizing your research. We had folks from industry talk about their journey through industry and how they—or how they went from academia to industry, entrepreneurs.
And I thought the topics were really great that we had: how to land a first job, how to negotiate a job, work-life balance, leadership in medicine. I mean, really great topics. So I think participating in a meeting where you get to see the other side of medicine and the personal side is very important.
And it is a great opportunity to meet your colleagues too. So we encouraged all of the participants to exchange their contact information, sit at different tables during each meeting so you can meet other people, and also ask questions and participate. And it was very engaging, so that was really great. I think it was a great meeting, and I really look forward to having another one.
Zachary Klaassen: Absolutely. I totally agree. Any final remarks, any concluding statements for our listeners today?
Andrea Apolo: No. I think we had a really great group, and they were so engaged, they were so curious. And they did a great job networking and coming up and introducing themselves and going up to the microphone and asking questions. I mean, it was really fun, and I hope that we get more folks in the later years as we continue to run this, applying, and making this kind of a part of their meetings that they attend.
And I went to this meeting back when I was first starting—it just becomes part of their training as they go through. Because I think it’s important, again, to nurture really the folks that are going to be running the show in five to 10 years from now.
Zachary Klaassen: That’s right. No, absolutely. It’s easy to pat ourselves on the back as cochairs, but it really was a fun weekend. The feedback’s been fun. I hope we get invited to at least attend, if not run it again in the future. So it was a lot of fun working with you and getting to know you, and it’s going to be fun to see how this sort of evolves over the next couple of years. So thanks so much for joining us and spreading your thoughts and sharing them on UroToday.
Andrea Apolo: It was so much fun to work with you. Yeah. I got to know you a little bit better and kind of see the personal side of you. And it was a lot of fun.
Zachary Klaassen: It was a lot of fun.
Andrea Apolo: Ditto.
Zachary Klaassen: Thanks so much, Andrea. Take care.
Andrea Apolo: All right. Bye.