Winter 2024
By Kathy Clute
Photography by Sam Ogden
Breast and uterine cancers are the focus of more than $1 million in grants to four Dana-Farber investigators recently awarded by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and its partners.
Nolan Priedigkeit, MD, PhD, and Capucine Héraud, PhD, received grants to support their research into breast cancer. Sarah Johnstone, MD, PhD, and Joyce Liu, MD, MPH, director of clinical research in the Division of Gynecology, received awards for their investigations of uterine cancer.
“We are honored to support the innovative research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which represents AACR’s commitment to advancing the fight against breast and uterine cancers,” said Yixian (John) Zhang, PhD, vice president of research and grants administration at the AACR. “By funding these promising studies, we aim to foster the development of targeted, effective treatments that can significantly improve patient outcomes.”
Priedigkeit is testing a new technology to target metastatic breast cancer cells by focusing on nucleic acids like RNA instead of proteins, an approach that could lead to more effective and less toxic treatments. He will test an RNA sensor that can detect fusion RNAs, activate a molecular switch, and trigger a toxin within cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. His grant—a Young Investigator Award for Translational Cancer Research—is from the AACR and Conquer Cancer®, the ASCO Foundation.
Héraud received an AACR-Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance Invasive Lobular Carcinoma Research Fellowship for her work to better understand the effectiveness of hormone treatments for that subtype of breast cancer. She will study breast cancer tissue samples from early stage invasive lobular carcinomas and invasive ductal carcinomas to identify the differences between them, testing how they respond to tamoxifen and another hormone therapy, letrozole.
“By funding these promising studies, we aim to foster the development of targeted, effective treatments that can significantly improve patient outcomes.”
YixiaN Zhang, PhD, American Association for Cancer Research
Uterine cancer is one of the few cancers where both incidence and mortality are rising. Liu is investigating whether a combination therapy that inhibits two key proteins, WEE1 and ATR, could have synergistic effects that would improve outcomes for patients diagnosed with these cancers. Liu received a Victoria’s Secret Global Fund for Women’s Cancers Rising Innovator Research Grant, in partnership with Pelotonia and AACR.
Johnstone, who received a Victoria’s Secret Global Fund for Women’s Cancers Career Development Award, in partnership with Pelotonia and AACR, is targeting difficult gynecologic cancers by studying the 3D organization of the genome to determine how certain proteins are disrupted and how they contribute to cancer development.