New Starr Cancer Consortium Grants Awarded to Weill Cornell Medicine Researchers
October 30, 2024
Three teams led by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists have received awards from the Starr Cancer Consortium in its 17th and final annual grant competition. The grants will fund research on the deep mechanisms of common cancers and related treatment strategies.
The Starr Cancer Consortium, established in 2006 with generous support from The Starr Foundation, includes The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medicine. The consortium’s goal has been to encourage highly collaborative and transformative research on cancer biology and novel treatment strategies. Its grants have targeted early-career scientists and have been intended mainly as seed funding for ambitious, long-term projects.
“Collaborative research, combining diverse areas of expertise and knowledge, is at the heart of successful biomedical breakthroughs,” said Dr. Jedd Wolchok, the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. “We extend our gratitude to The Starr Foundation for fostering these vital combined efforts to advance cancer prevention and treatment.”
Weill Cornell Medicine researchers are the principal investigators for three of this year’s ten funded projects and co-principal investigators for another four of the projects.
“We’re extremely grateful to The Starr Foundation for its generous support over the years, which has enabled our investigators to pursue transformative ideas in cancer research,” said Dr. Hugh Hemmings, senior associate dean for research and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine. “The collective impact of this funding has been extraordinary in supporting innovative and collaborative projects from interinstitutional teams of investigators.”
Dr. Ekta Khurana is an Associate Professor of Physiology and Biophysics; Co-Leader of the Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics Program at the Meyer Cancer Center, and a member of the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine.
The title of her funded research project is, “Prostate cancer non-neuroendocrine lineage plasticity: detection using multimodal integration and immunotherapeutic targeting.”
Prostate cancer is driven initially by androgen (testosterone) receptor signaling, but commonly develops resistance to androgen-blocking treatments so that it maintains its growth despite low or zero androgen levels. This “castration-resistant” prostate cancer (CRPC) represents the key challenge for oncologists in this field. Dr. Khurana and colleagues recently discovered and defined a relatively common, stem-cell like subtype of CRPC. In their newly funded project, they plan to develop an AI-based method for readily identifying this subtype from biopsied tissue slides. Based on evidence that this stem-cell-like subtype creates an immune-suppressive environment around itself, they also hope to find an effective treatment strategy that reverses this immune suppression to unleash anticancer immunity.
Dr. Khurana’s Co-Principal Investigators are Dr. Francisco Sanchez-Vega (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), Dr. Yu Chen (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), and Dr. Roberta Zappasodi (Weill Cornell Medicine).
Other WCM recipients of the 2024 Starr Cancer Consortium Awards are Dr. Jacob Geri, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, a member of the Meyer Cancer Center, and Dr. Anna S. Nam, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and a member of the Meyer Cancer Center.
Click here to learn about their awards.
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