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Hope Funds for Cancer Research
Press Release


Hope Funds Announces Five 2021 Research Fellows

For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
John A. Wells
212-769-2170
media@hope-funds.org

Newport, RI - October 18, 2021 -- Hope Funds for Cancer Research, dedicated to advancing research into the most difficult-to-treat cancers, has announced the selection of recipients of this year's Hope Funds Postdoctoral Fellowships.

"These young researchers are making significant contributions as they devise new approaches to understanding the most difficult to treat cancers," said Prof. Bryan R.G. Williams, Co-Chair, Hope Funds Scientific Advisory Council. "We at Hope Funds are privileged to have the opportunity to fund their important work, which reflects our commitment to promoting scientific innovation."

Applications for the fellowships came from the most prestigious research institutions and were reviewed by a global scientific study section comprised of key opinion-leader scientists working in oncology. From more than a hundred applications, Hope Funds selected its 2021 Fellows:

Veena Padmanaban, M.S., Ph.D., at The Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Sohail Tavazoie, M.D., Ph.D.; Simon Joost, Ph.D., at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the laboratory of Tuomas Tammela, M.D., Ph.D.; Hans-Georg Sprenger, Ph.D., at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Bruce M. Spiegelman, Ph.D.; Prasad Trivedi, Ph.D., at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of California San Diego in the laboratory of Don Cleveland, Ph.D.; and Rigney Turnham, Ph.D., at the University of California San Francisco, in the laboratory of John Gordan, M.D., Ph.D.

Each Fellow will receive approximately $165,000 over three years to fund their research.
 
About the 2021 Fellows 

Veena Padmanaban, M.S., Ph.D., is at The Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Sohail Tavazoie, M.D., Ph.D. She received her B.Tech. in Biotechnology from SRM University, India, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD. Her research aims to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the pathological evidence that increased innervation is associated with increased metastatic relapse in a number of cancers. These findings would define the mechanisms by which neurons and immune cells cooperate to drive metastasis and perhaps, also present the neuron- cancer circuit as an attractive therapeutic target for metastatic disease.

Simon Joost, Ph.D. is at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the laboratory of Tuomas Tammela, M.D., Ph.D. He received his B.Sc. in Human Biology from Marburg University, Germany, and both his M.Sc. in Biomedicine and his Ph.D. in Medical Science from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. His project focuses on how metabolic microenvironments drive molecular and functional tumor heterogeneity in lung and pancreatic cancer. This project aims to advance our understanding of how molecular and phenotypic cell diversity in tumors is maintained, and how it could be therapeutically modulated. Establishing a mechanistic relationship between metabolic niches and tumor heterogeneity could mark an important shift in cancer therapy.

Hans-Georg Sprenger, Ph.D., is at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Bruce M. Spiegelman, Ph.D. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Cologne, Germany and worked at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing. His work aims to identify novel components of the unique metabolism of one of the most difficult-to-treat cancers, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). His project focuses on the metabolic rewiring of HCC and aims to decipher novel molecular components which will inform the development of more effective cancer therapies.

Prasad Trivedi, Ph.D. is postdoc at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of California San Diego in the laboratory of Don Cleveland, Ph.D. He received his M.Sc. in Biotechnology from the University of Pune in India and Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, VA. His research aims to identify proteins and mechanisms that drive the evolution of cancer genomes. His project focuses on understanding how focal complex chromosomal rearrangements arise from mistakes in cell division. Understanding these mechanisms would lead to novel therapeutic strategies to limit cancer genome evolution with pan-cancer applicability.

Rigney Turnham, Ph.D., is at the University of California San Francisco, in the laboratory of John Gordan, M.D., Ph.D. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her lab has focused on the causes of liver cancer, specifically the hepatitis B virus (HBV) to identify targetable mechanisms of tumor initiation and growth. The goal of her project is to identify signaling dependencies in hepatocellular carcinoma by understanding the effects of HBV on phosphatase and kinase complexes, and thus nominate new therapeutic targets for this difficult to treat cancer. 

About the Hope Funds Fellowships 

Hope Funds for Cancer Research supports research for highly innovative projects that challenge the traditional paradigms associated with understanding the causes, mechanisms, progression, disease markers, or risk factors of the most difficult-to-treat cancers. Hope Funds believes it is important to emphasize creative approaches to research and award grants to young scientists based on the following criteria: project innovation and originality; the significance and direct relevance of the research proposal; the project's approach and conceptual framework; the researcher's qualifications and those of his or her mentors; and the quality of the researcher's overall working environment. 

About the Hope Funds for Cancer Research

Hope Funds for Cancer Research was formed in 2006 to establish a funding vehicle that would take a rational scientific, medical, and investment approach to making grants for the most innovative and promising research efforts to address the most difficult-to-treat cancers, including pancreatic, lung, liver, sarcomas, esophageal, brain, gastric, renal and ovarian cancers, as well as rare leukemias, lymphomas and MDS. These cancers are insidiously aggressive illnesses that kill most of their victims within months, even with aggressive chemotherapy. The Trustees of the Hope Funds for Cancer Research believe that funding young, innovative researchers will lead to breakthroughs in these areas and increase life expectancy for those with these types of cancers. The Hope Funds for Cancer Research is a 509 (a)(1) charity under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service's code. For additional information, please visit www.hope-funds.org or call 401-847-3286. 
 
Hope Funds for Cancer Research: Advancing innovative research in understudied cancers

For additional information about the organization, please visit www.hope-funds.org or call (401) 847-3286. 
 
Hope Funds for Cancer Research is an independent and unaffiliated non-profit organization

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