Roswell Park teams draw more than $34 million in grants supporting new research
Joseph Lau, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Oncology in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, received a five-year, $3.23 million grant from Versiti Wisconsin Inc. and the NIH for research on glycans, carbohydrates on cell surfaces within the bone marrow that play a signaling role in blood cell production.
His work aims to study how failure in glycan signaling contributes to bone-marrow diseases such as myelodysplastic syndrome and myeloproliferative neoplasms, and will also look at how blood-cell production can be re-established after bone marrow transplantation.
Dr. Erik Knudsen
A possible new strategy for treating pancreatic cancer highlights the promise of collaboration between experts in both precision medicine and immunology. The findings from a team led by Agnieszka Witkiewicz, MD, and Erik Knudsen, PhD, at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and published in the journal Gut suggest a combination treatment approach that can make some breakthrough immunotherapy drugs effective for more patients with pancreatic cancer.
The study opens up a possibility for improving outcomes for patients with a notoriously difficult-to-treat cancer using a combination of existing drugs.
Dr. Ethan Abel
Ethan Abel, PhD, Assistant Professor of Oncology in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, received a two-year, $375,000 Pancreatic Cancer Action Network-AACR Pathway to Leadership Grant from the American Association for Cancer Research. His project aims to understand the role of the HNF1A protein in pancreatic cancer cells, how it contributes to tumor growth and treatment resistance, and how it might be eliminated.
“As a research intern, I see the incredible work that occurs here. If anyone can find a cure for this disease that I’m living with, it’s Roswell Park.”