Research Funding Awards

Dr. Delphine Chen, professor of Radiology at UW Medicine, Wil B. Nelp M.D. Endowed Professorship in Nuclear Medicine, and director of Molecular Imaging and Therapy at Fred Hutch, was awarded an Ignition Award for her proposal titled “GRIP imaging for imaging T cell immunotherapy responses.” Delphine’s proposal aims to elucidate the kinetics of T-cell activation in response to immunotherapy by utilizing novel imaging modalities. This approach will enable enhanced clinical decision-making support for determining the duration of therapy and the risk of toxicity to internal organs, as well as assessing the overall efficacy of the immunotherapy regimen.

Dr. Robert (Bob) Eisenman, professor in Fred Hutch’s Basic Sciences Division, was awarded an Ignition Award for his proposal titled “Understanding and exploiting MYC-network interactions to thwart MYC-addicted cancers.” Bob’s proposal focuses on an innovative approach to interfering with the MYC family of oncogenic transcription factors by targeting MondoA, a transcription factor that regulates metabolic and stress-response related gene expression. This work will focus on pancreatic adenocarcinoma by determining the molecular mechanisms of how inhibition of MondoA can arrest tumor cell growth in this disease state. This work has the potential for targeting tumor vulnerabilities across the spectrum of MYC-dependent cancers.

Dr. Stanley Lee, an associate professor in Fred Hutch’s Translational Science and Therapeutics Division, was awarded an Ignition Award for his work focused on “Identification of Aberrant Splicing-Derived Targets for Cancer Immunotherapies.” Myeloid malignancies can comprise clonal mutations that drive widespread splicing dysregulation, cumulating in the production of tumor-specific peptides present on HLA molecules. This provides an opportunity for the identification of mutation specific targets, and Stanley intends to utilize ARTEMIS (a high-yield proteogenomic-platform), in conjunction with RNA-seq and proteomics data, to improve prediction capabilities for identifying novel immunotherapy strategies.

A Technology Dissemination Award went to Dr. Jeff Leek, vice president and chief data officer, J. Orin Edson Foundational Endowed Chair and professor in the Biostatistics Program at Fred Hutch, and co-investigator Dr. Stephen Salerno, a postdoctoral researcher in the Public Health Sciences Division, for their proposal centered on developing a shared approach to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) across the Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children's Cancer Consortium. Jeff and Stephen have previously developed an AI/ML tool, termed Scorcher, that enables easy-to-use access to model development. Throughout the course of this award, they intend to pilot Scorcher with physician-investigator champions who have developed the necessary datasets ready for AI/ML input. These pilot collaborations will enable the identification of user needs, pain points and priorities, that can be adapted to expand access to Scorcher across the Cancer Consortium, alongside educational workshops and training.

Dr. Daniel Chiu, professor of Chemistry and Bioengineering at the University of Washington, was awarded a Technology Dissemination Award for his work involving the “Dissemination of a single-molecule-sensitive digital flow cytometer.” Extra cellular vesicles (EVs) secreted by cells provide an option for non-invasive, liquid biopsy in the early detection of cancer. Daniel and team have developed a highly sensitive methodology for EV capture and phenotyping and will utilize the support from this award to make the technology available to the Cancer Consortium as a shared resource in the Fred Hutch and UW Flow Cytometry cores. Further, dissemination of this novel technology will allow for continuous refinement of the technology, allowing for broad application across the research community.

One Ignition Award went to Dr. Sanjay Srivatsan, an assistant professor in the Basic Sciences Division. Sanjay’s funded project will focus on developing a new platform investigating the single cell whole genome and transcriptome of pediatric patients with acute leukemia. With this detailed data set, Dr. Srivatsan intends on utilizing a novel statistical framework called "genomic velocity," which looks at mutations shared between cells to estimate the rate of change of each given clone in a sample. Collectively, this will create a longitudinal clinical profile for leukemia patients that is more comprehensive and will inform the clinical decision-making process.

A second Ignition Award is going to Dr. Savannah Partridge, a professor in the Department of Radiology at UW Medicine, and co-investigator Dr. Anum Kazerouni. Dr. Partridge’s project aims to utilize quantitative imaging and a novel radiomics approach to better characterize tumor microenvironment heterogeneity in HER2+ breast cancer to predict treatment response and long-term outcomes. With this two-pronged approach, Dr. Partridge intends to identify intrinsic imaging phenotypes that are predictive of a treatment outcome and give providers a better set of tools to assess disease recurrence and develop personalized treatment strategies.

Dr. Elizabeth Swisher, professor in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, received an Ignition Award with collaborator Dr. Eric Konnick in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology for their project titled "Launching a multiplex BRCA 1/RAD51C ddPCR methylation assay as a clinical HRD test." PARP inhibitors are standard treatment for ovarian cancers with a BRCA mutation and Dr. Swisher’s new assay is designed to identify additional cancer characteristics for patients that might benefit from this treatment. The goal is to have this assay ready for clinical testing, and to obtain a Washington state license for medical diagnostics, so that the genomic makeup of patient tumors can be accurately determined to receive appropriate life-changing therapy.