The GastroIntestinal Research Foundation Launches New Multi-Million Dollar Funding Initiative Aimed at Curing Cancers of the Digestive System
Summary
As always, the Foundations focus is improving patient outcomes, and it will fund rigorously evaluated science from across the country.Chaired by Sonia Kupfer, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Co-Director of the Comprehensive Cancer Risk and Prevention Clinic, and Director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Risk and Prevention Clinic at UChicago Medicine, CA CUREs research review process is advised by a team of multi-disciplinary medical experts from across the countryThe Foundations President, Yekaterina Chudnovsky, said, "CA CURE is a bold and innovative approach to identify, treat and even one day cure digestive cancers. Both vaccines have been designed with Elicios proprietary lymph node-targeting Amphiphile (AMP) platform that "educates" T cells on how to target particular antigens, such as mutated proteins in cancer. BRAF V600E mutations are present in 10% of colon cancer while mutations in p53 are found in approximately 60% of patients with solid tumors.Rarecyte has been funded to test gastrointestinal cancer patient samples within clinical trials to determine circulating tumor cell (CTC) burden and selected biomarker analysis. The emerging trend of personalized medicine (patient-specific therapy) requires deeper understanding of the makeup of CTCs, both at the protein and gene level, to select therapies which will specifically treat the individual patients cancer.Funding to Dr. Christopher Mason at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) will support research utilizing a cutting-edge, sub-cellular spatial profiling technology to reveal novel aspects of colorectal cancer (CRC) heterogeneity and improve our understanding of normal tissues, at both the RNA and protein levels. The results will provide an unprecedented resource for the study of CRC and normal biology, allowing investigators using GeoMx and CosMx technology to experience the full potential of these platforms in their research.