At the 2021 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting on April 11, National Cancer Institute (NCI) Director Dr. Ned Sharpless laid out his vision for building a bridge between where we are and where we need to be in cancer research, addressing the increase of investment and areas that he sees as priorities or areas of promise.

During this address, Dr. Sharpless highlighted the Biden administration’s focus on cancer research and outlined three areas of promise for NCI:

With the administration’s commitment and support, and the progress and enthusiasm from the cancer research community, NCI is hopeful that together we can build a brighter future for those affected by cancer. As Dr. Sharpless said in his talk: “The notion of a bridge that we build together...is a good metaphor of the work before us. When we consider where we need to go in cancer research, it’s clear that the bridge must be complete, must be strong enough, and long enough to connect the present with the future, where we are today, and where we want to go.”

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.

From University Hospitals: In a Correspondence article published in yesterday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from University Hospitals (UH) Cleveland Medical Center and New York Presbyterian Hospital – Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, found a substantial reduction in the use of minimally invasive surgery for cervical cancer after publication of the results a major study called the Laparoscopic Approach to Cervical Cancer (LACC) in November 2018.

The earlier study, which compared minimally invasive surgery with open abdominal radical hysterectomy in patients with early-stage cervical cancer, found minimally invasive surgery to be associated with worse disease-free and overall survival than open surgery. As a result of that study and other related studies, many guidelines recommended that surgeons use open surgery rather than minimally invasive surgery.

In the new article, the researchers sought to answer the extent to how practice changed by studying the records of 2,437 patients at 283 medical centers, ultimately finding a dramatic decrease in the use of minimally invasive surgery following the LACC Trial publication.

Jonathan Shoag, MD, senior author of the study, urologic oncologist from the UH Urology Institute and member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center said that the odds were still higher for minimally invasive surgery at a non-academic medical center compared with an academic medical center; 0.81 versus 0.27. He said the results of the new study suggest an opportunity to improve outcomes at non-academic medical centers.

The Case Comprehensive Cancer Center (Case CCC) would like to extend congratulations to the following trainees whom each received a School of Medicine 2021 Doctoral Excellence Award for their original scholarly work, significant contribution to the field, and significant service contributions:

Biochemistry

Biomedical Engineering

Clinical Translational Science,

Genetics & Genome Sciences,

Molecular Medicine

Pathology

Pharmacology

Arthur F.W. Hughes Award

Tian He

Niha Bieg

Caroline El Sanadi

Zita Hubler

Courtney Hershberger

Daniel Leonard

Xu Han

Chen Weng

Afshin Dowlati, MD

Pallavi Tiwari, PhD

Pallavi Tiwari, PhD

Drew Adams, PhD

Richard Padgett, PhD

Derek Taylor, PhD

Marvin Neiman, PhD

Fulai Jin, PhD

Available award: $50,000

Available award: $50,000

Available award: $25,000 for one year

Available award: up to $150,000

The CWRU Translational Fellow Program (TFP) seeks to train individuals in entrepreneurship and the translation of innovation into commercial ventures by connecting them to programs and workshops around campus while protecting time for their entrepreneurial activities.

Applications are sought from individuals who are employed by CWRU or its hospital partners, or who are students at CWRU who are interested in a career in entrepreneurship and technology commercialization. Applications are especially encouraged from doctoral students, post-docs, and/or research staff. Applicants will commit to work through the process of developing a technology for commercialization either from their own laboratory or agree to be assigned a technology. This fellowship will run from 7/1/2021 through 6/30/2022.

The Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award is designed to provide support for the next generation of exceptionally creative thinkers with “high-risk/high-reward” ideas that have the potential to significantly impact our understanding of and/or approaches to the prevention, diagnosis or treatment of cancer.

The Innovation Award is specifically designed to provide funding to extraordinary early career researchers who have an innovative new idea but lack sufficient preliminary data to obtain traditional funding. It is not designed to fund incremental advances. The research supported by the award must be novel, exceptionally creative and, if successful, have the strong potential for high impact in the cancer field.

The Stage 1 award will be for two years, $200,000 per year ($400,000 total) with the opportunity for up to two additional years of funding (up to four years total for $800,000). Stage 2 support for years three and four will be granted to those awardees who demonstrate progress on their proposed research during years one and two of the award.

The Department of Defense and its Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) have announced program details and application instructions for the following FY2021 programs: