What a year
The Lynn Sage Foundation enjoyed a wonderful year thanks to the generous and thoughtful support of so many. Thank you! We’re thrilled to share that the Lynn Sage Scholars, past and present, also had an outstanding year:
We are most excited to report that current Lynn Sage Scholar, Dr. Dai Horiuchi recently was awarded funding from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program. This is a tremendously competitive mechanism with a funding rate of only 5-6%. Most compelling is that Dr. Horiuchi’s proposal is a collaboration of current and former Lynn Sage Scholars, including Drs. Marc Mendillo and Athan Vassilopoulos as formal collaborators. Their emerging cooperation is aimed at bringing new targeted therapeutic strategies, for patients with Triple Negative Breast Cancer, to early-stage clinical testing as soon as possible. Dr. Horiuchi credits The Lynn Sage Foundation with bringing them together and helping them pursue a collaborative spirit.
There are many other Scholar highlights to note as well:
Dr. Marc Mendillo was also awarded funding from Susan G. Komen Memorial to study a molecule called HSF1, which allows cancer cells to survive under stress. His work seeks to understand how HSF1 is “turned on” in cancer and how it affects breast cancer cell responses to anti-cancer drugs.
Dr. Abde Abukhdeir recently received Internal Review Board approval for his project “Determination< of Estrogen Receptor Status in Women Diagnosed with Metastatic Breast Cancer Using Cell-Free Tumor DNA.” The project includes a clinical trial collecting blood samples from women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. The goal of this project is to determine if this blood test is an effective way to survey all of the cancer in a breast cancer patient at once.
Dr. Athan Vassilopoulos was published in Aging Cell for research he pursued as the most recent Lynn Sage Scholar, “Sirtuins at the crossroads of stemness, aging, and cancer.” Dr. Vassilopoulos is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
Dr. Virginia Kaklamani was published in Cancer for research she pursued as a Lynn Sage Scholar, “A prospective evaluation of clinical and genetic predictors of weight changes in breast cancer survivors.” Dr. Kaklamani is currently the Ruth McLean Bowman Bowers Chair in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, A.B. Alexander Distinguished Chair in Oncology, and Leader of the Breast Oncology Program at University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio.
During this season of giving, we hope you will consider supporting The Lynn Sage Foundation and the brilliant work of the Lynn Sage Scholars.
