Adding potent research firepower and fresh physical perspectives to combat cancer, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has funded the new Center on the Microenvironment and Metastasis, which will be headquartered at Cornell University. It is one of 12 new research centers across the nation recently announced by the NCI. This grant is for $13 million over five years.
The awards are intended to give recipients the freedom and flexibility to explore fundamental scientific questions, to apply the resulting knowledge at the bedside, and to bring insights from the clinical setting back to the laboratory for further exploration.
Benjamin Levy, M.D., of the Division of Hematology/Oncology, was selected as one of the 2009 recipients of the Young Investigators Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) for his study, "Biomarker Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells in Prostate Cancer: Predicting Response to Taxanes: A Pilot Study".
Dr. David Nanus was awarded $100,000 from the Prostate Cancer Foundation to support his research program titled "PSMA-based Microfluidics-Capture of Circulating Prostate Cancer Cells: Study of Microtubule-driven Androgen Receptor Signaling, Gene Fusion, and Gene Expression Profiles with Correlation to Clinical Response to Taxane Therapy".
John Leonard, M.D., Associate Director of Clinical Research for the Weill Cornell Cancer Center, was awarded a one-year grant from Genentech to support the development of a Tissue Procurement Core, as part of the newly established Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Dr. Scott Tagawa, of the Division of Hematology/Oncology, has received a Clinical Trial Award from the U.S. Department of Defense as part of its Prostate Cancer Research Program. The grant, in the amount of $750,000, will fund a multi-center clinical trial focusing on targeted radiotherapy in prostate cancer over the course of three years.
The Breast Cancer Research Group in the division of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Medicine is dedicated to improving and extending the lives of patients. As such, there are several different programs under the umbrella of the Breast Cancer Research Program.
Roy M. "Trip" Gulick, M.D., M.P.H. was the first author of the lead article in the October 2, 2008 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, describing the efficacy of maraviroc in later stage patients with a substantial history of previous antiretroviral treatment.
In recognition of his contributions to the transplant community, Dr. Manikkam Suthanthiran accepted the invitation to chair a scientific session at the XXII International Congress of the Transplantation Society, entitled "Genomics and Molecular Diagnostics." Dr. Suthanthiran also co-chaired a session entitled "mTOR-Inhibition – The Science and the Clinical Outcomes."
Weill Cornell Medical Associates (WCIMA), the primary practice for the Division of Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine at WCMC, was a major site for the ACCORD study, an NIH-sponsored clinical trial spanning ten years, investigating the aggressive management of diabetes.
