Dear Cancer Center members:

The Case Comprehensive Cancer Center is an ever-evolving organization, with research aims and goals driven by our member activities. We have seen a lot of growth and advancement over the past few years. With the addition of new leaders and key recruits comes a natural shifting of research foci. After careful self-assessment, discussions in program meetings, and recommendations by our External Advisory Committee, we are realigning our research program structure.

Disease-focused programs were most impacted. We decided it was most beneficial to incorporate investigators across programs in “ribbons” instead of within stand-alone programs. We are eliminating the GU Malignancies Program, bringing our total research programs from seven to six. We have maintained critical scientific teams and interactions while simultaneously providing better scientific focus across the Cancer Center programs.

Scientific programs and their leaders are below. New programs and leaders are listed in bold.

We are in the process of sending emails to all members regarding new program assignments. Please reach out to Cancer Center administration if you believe you fit better in another program than the one assigned. Also, please be on the lookout for additional information from program leaders regarding program meeting invites, and program-specific funding opportunities. Please plan to attend the annual scientific retreat (virtual, July 22-23) where we will talk more about new program aims, priorities and future directions.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback on the future of our center.

The 2021 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting is taking place virtually in two parts. The AACR Virtual Annual Meeting Part I was held April 10-15 and Part II will be held May 17-21. The AACR Annual Meeting program covers the latest discoveries across the spectrum of cancer research—from population science and prevention; to cancer biology, translational, and clinical studies; to survivorship and advocacy—and highlights the work of the best minds in research and medicine from institutions all over the world.

As announced last month, Cleveland Clinic's Nima Sharifi, MD was selected as the 2021 recipient of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Waun Ki Hong Award for Outstanding Achievement in Translational and Clinical Cancer Research.

In the award announcement, AACR highlighted Dr. Sharifi "has made significant contributions to cancer research through his focus on the role of androgen synthesis in advanced castration-resistant prostate cancers." He was selected for his work into how a genetic variant enables prostate cancer cells to evade first-line treatment and leads to aggressive disease.

Dr. Sharifi is director of the Center for Genitourinary Malignancies Research at Lerner Research Institute and the Kendrick Family Endowed Chair for Prostate Cancer Research at Cleveland Clinic. He also leads the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center's GU Malignancies Program and is a professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine. His featured award lecture will be available on-demand during Part II of the 2021 AACR Virtual Annual Meeting beginning Monday, May 17.

In an interview with Forbes, Pallavi Tiwari, PhD talks about her work fighting brain tumors, her Johnson & Johnson WiSTEM²D Award and her vision for the technologies she and her team at the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD) are developing. Dr. Tiwari is an assistant professor of Biomedical Engineering, Director of Brain Image Computing (BrIC) laboratory at Case Western Reserve University, a lead faculty member of the CCIPD and a member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center.

From The Daily: The US Food and Drug Administration has approved human clinical trials to test the safety of cancer-detection technology developed at Case Western Reserve University: a tumor-targeting contrast agent that accurately detects aggressive prostate cancer in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan.

The imaging agent, known as MT218, was invented in the lab of Zheng-Rong Lu, PhD who has been developing the tumor-specific MRI contrast agent for nearly 15 years. Dr. Lu is the M. Frank Rudy and Margaret Domiter Rudy Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Case School of Engineering and a member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center's Cancer Imaging Program.

The Cancer Metabolism Shared Resource is now open and accepting new customers. The facility offers isotope tracing analysis of citric acid cycle intermediates and related metabolites. For more information contact director Masaru Miyagi, PhD at 216.368.2641 or mxm356@case.edu.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2021 AACI Cancer Health Equity Award. The award was created to recognize an individual or group who demonstrates exceptional leadership in promoting health equity, mitigating cancer disparities, and advocating for diversity and inclusion at their cancer center. The nomination period will close on Friday, May 28.

All students, postdocs and fellows conducting cancer research are invited to submit abstracts for two opportunities to present their research during the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center Annual Scientific Retreat: 1) poster presentation and 2) oral presentation. Cancer Center leadership will review abstracts based on the relationship to cancer, novelty, significance of findings and clarity.

National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) is pleased to announce a collaboration with Pfizer Global Medical Grants (Pfizer) to offer a new grant opportunity seeking proposals to advance the understanding of the mechanisms of action, underlying biology, and clinical activity of talazoparib in prostate cancer.

NCCN views this collaboration with Pfizer as clear recognition of the advantages offered to investigators from all US institutions through the NCCN Oncology Research Program. We hope you and your colleagues will be interested in this opportunity.

LOIs must be submitted by 5:00 pm ET on Monday, June 21, 2021. Please direct questions regarding this RFP to Nicole Kamienski at kamienski@nccn.org with the subject line, “Pfizer Talazoparib 2021 Project.”

Recently posted limited submission funding opportunities with internal competitions (through InfoReady) include the following:

When timing allows, the CWRU Office of Research and Technology Management (ORTM) holds internal competitions to determine which applicants may submit their proposals. These opportunities are listed in InfoReady.

Some of the submission deadlines do not allow enough time to hold an internal competition. When the submission deadline is significantly less than one month away, ORTM will not hold a competition. It is critical, however, that any CWRU researcher interested in submitting a proposal for a limited submission receive approval to submit. Contact limitedsubmission@case.edu with any questions.