|
2016
class brings total of IRGs awarded to 36
NEW ORLEANS – Stand
Up To Cancer (SU2C) announced Monday that it is awarding 10
grants of $750,000 each to early-career scientists to
support innovative, high-risk, high-reward projects in
cancer research. The announcement was made at the 2016
Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer
Research, SU2C’s Scientific Partner.
“We have selected 10 scientists and projects
that we believe use new insights and fresh approaches and
have high potential to make a difference for people with
cancer,” said William G. Kaelin Jr., MD, professor of
medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and
chairman of the SU2C Innovative Research Grant (IRG) review
committee. “Just as importantly, SU2C is investing in the
future of cancer research by supporting an outstanding group
of early-career investigators whom we believe are rising
stars in science.”
The announcement marks the third time SU2C
has selected a class of Innovative Research Grant
recipients. Previous classes were announced in 2009 and
2011. With the new class of IRGs, the total number of
recipients now stands at 36.
Serving as Stand Up To Cancer’s celebrity
ambassador at the event is Sonequa Martin-Green, 31, an
actress and producer who is a main cast member in the hit
television show “The Walking Dead,” in which she plays a
survivor of the zombie apocalypse. In real life, she has
lost several members of her extended family to cancer, and
has other relatives, including her mother, who are cancer
survivors.
“I have seen the terrible toll that cancer
can take in a single family, so I respect and fully support
these outstanding researchers in their battle against
cancer,” Martin-Green said. “Hopefully the innovative ideas
they are pursuing will one day spare other families the
losses that my family, and so many other families have
endured.”
The 10 grant recipients work at eight
different institutions across the country where they have
their own, independent laboratories. These innovative
projects are characterized as “high-risk” because they
either challenge existing paradigms, utilize novel concepts
or approaches, and because in order to receive a grant, the
applicants were not required—as they would be by most
conventional funding mechanisms—to have already conducted a
portion of the research resulting in an established base of
evidence. If successful, the projects have the potential for
“high-reward” in terms of saving lives.
“We’re trying to find the superstars of
tomorrow and set them on their course by giving them funding
so they don’t have to worry about that at this earlier stage
of their career,” said Sara A. Courtneidge, PhD, associate
director for translational sciences of the Knight Cancer
Institute at Oregon Health & Science University and
vice-chairperson of the review committee.
“These grants will allow them to get off to a
really good start in their independent research programs,
take this research to the next level and then apply for more
traditional funding mechanisms to take it forward,” she
said. “I see it as a really good opportunity for young
people not to have to worry so much about where their next
grant is coming from until they’ve got themselves
established.”
The scope of the projects selected range from
tumor metabolism to imaging of drug response in single cells
to mathematical models of combination drug therapy to the
use of certain enzymes as new anticancer targets, among
other topics.
With their institutions and the titles of
their proposals, the IRG recipients are:
• John G. Albeck, PhD, University of California, Davis:
Targeting cellular plasticity in individual basal-type
breast cancer cells;
• Kara A. Bernstein, PhD, University of Pittsburgh:
Uncovering how RAD51 paralog mutations contribute to cancer
predisposition;
• Juan R. Cubillos-Ruiz, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine :
Phospholipid messengers as drivers of dendritic cell
dysfunction in cancer;
• Greg Michael Delgoffe, PhD, University of Pittsburgh:
Metabolic reprogramming using oncolytic viruses to improve
immunotherapy;
• Martin Kampmann, PhD, University of California, San
Francisco: “Weak links” in cancer proteostasis networks as
new therapeutic targets;
• Dan A. Landau, MD, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine:
Algorithmically-driven quantitative combination cancer
therapy engineering;
• Li Ma, PhD, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer
Center: Deubiquitinating enzymes as novel anticancer
targets;
• Melissa Skala, PhD, Vanderbilt University (moving to
Morgridge Institute for Research, University of
Wisconsin-Madison): Imaging cell-level heterogeneity in
solid tumors for personalized treatment;
• Matthew G. Vander Heiden, MD, PhD, Koch Institute for
Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology: Defining the metabolic dependencies of tumors;
and
• Hao Zhu, MD, University of Texas Southwestern Medical
Center: Defining the mechanistic connections between injury,
regeneration, and cancer.
More than 250 applications were received,
from which 16 finalists were chosen to make presentations in
person to a committee of senior scientists.
“They were all incredibly good,” said William
G. Nelson, MD, PhD, vice-chair of the review committee and
director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in
Baltimore. “Very hard-working, ambitious, and imaginative,
each and every one of them. Their ideas were high-risk and
high-reward, but the young scientists themselves were sure
bets. They are going to go places.”
The term of the grants begins July 1 and runs
for three years. The scientists will report their progress
twice a year to SU2C and the AACR, which organized the
application and review process and will administer the
grants.
Since 2008, SU2C has successfully launched 19
Dream Teams, two Translational Research Teams, and 36
Innovative Research Grants with funds committed by
philanthropic, organizational, corporate and individual
donors, as well as non-profit collaborators.
About the Stand Up To
Cancer Initiative
Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) raises funds to accelerate the
pace of research to get new therapies to patients quickly
and save lives now. SU2C, a program of the Entertainment
Industry Foundation (EIF), a 501(c)(3) charitable
organization, was established in 2008 by film and media
leaders who utilize the industry’s resources to engage the
public in supporting a new, collaborative model of cancer
research, and to increase awareness about cancer prevention
as well as progress being made in the fight against the
disease. As SU2C’s scientific partner, the American
Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and a Scientific
Advisory Committee led by Nobel Laureate Phillip A. Sharp,
PhD, conduct rigorous, competitive review processes to
identify the best research proposals to recommend for
funding, oversee grants administration, and provide expert
review of research progress.
Current members of the SU2C Council of
Founders and Advisors (CFA) include Katie Couric,
Sherry
Lansing, Lisa Paulsen, Rusty Robertson, Sue Schwartz,
Pamela Oas Williams, Ellen Ziffren, and Kathleen Lobb. The
late Laura Ziskin was also a co-founder. Sung Poblete,
Ph.D., R.N., has served as SU2C’s president since 2011.
For more information on Stand Up To Cancer, visit
www.standup2cancer.org
About the American Association for Cancer
Research
Founded in 1907, the American Association for Cancer
Research (AACR) is the world’s oldest and largest
professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer
research and its mission to prevent and cure cancer. AACR
membership includes more than 35,000 laboratory,
translational, and clinical researchers; population
scientists; other health care professionals; and patient
advocates residing in 104 countries. The AACR marshals the
full spectrum of expertise of the cancer community to
accelerate progress in the prevention, biology, diagnosis,
and treatment of cancer by annually convening more than 30
conferences and educational workshops, the largest of which
is the AACR Annual Meeting with nearly 19,300 attendees. In
addition, the AACR publishes eight prestigious,
peer-reviewed scientific journals and a magazine for cancer
survivors, patients, and their caregivers. The AACR funds
meritorious research directly as well as in cooperation with
numerous cancer organizations. As the Scientific Partner of
Stand Up To Cancer, the AACR provides expert peer review,
grants administration, and scientific oversight of team
science and individual investigator grants in cancer
research that have the potential for near-term patient
benefit. The AACR actively communicates with legislators and
other policymakers about the value of cancer research and
related biomedical science in saving lives from cancer. For
more information about the AACR, please visit
.
www.AACR.org
|