Research Database

Dr. Rieger-Christ and team are developing a minimally invasive test using nasal swabs to determine quickly and easily whether nodules found through CT screening are early cancer or benign lesions.

Drs. Sage and Weissman will test a new immunotherapy to boost the arsenal of immune cells to combat SCLC. They will work to disable a protein on the cancer cells that inhibits macrophages, a type of immune cell that can engulf and destroy cancer cells. This will boost the killing capacity of macrophages and recruit more immune cells to the area by the tumor.

Lung cancer cells depend on continuous cross-talk with other cells around them. Drs. Sweet-Cordero and Cochran will use decoy proteins to intercept and disable this essential molecular communications between the tumor and its environment, thereby destroying the cancer.

Dr. Burns is working on targeted therapy for NSCLC patients with mutations in a gene called KRAS, using a new class of drugs.

Dr. Halmos is working on a way to increase the effectiveness of radiation and chemotherapy that could also lead to personalized non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treatments, especially for the third of all lung cancer patients with locally advanced lung cancer.

Dr. Jiang is identifying sputum biomarkers that could improve the process of detecting early-stage lung cancer by contributing to development of a non-invasive test that complements low-dose computed tomography (CT) scans and improves the accuracy of diagnosis.

Dr. Kozono is studying which genetic types of lung cancer are the most resistant to radiation, and which of these may be best treated with a combination of radiation and bortezomib, a drug already FDA-approved for another type of cancer.

Dr. Sequist will develop models that explain how NSCLC patients can acquire drug resistance to targeted therapies after a period of initial successful treatment, leading to the development of new treatments to help patients overcome the drug resistance.

Dr. Slack is studying the KRAS-variant, a recently discovered KRAS mutation found in over 20% of  NSCLC patients, which has been shown to predict a patient’s response to cancer treatment. His research aims to confirm the role of the KRAS-variant to direct cancer therapy for lung cancer patients and as a potential future target for therapy.

Dr. Tennis aims to identify biomarkers that signal whether a patient is likely to benefit from iloprost and pioglitazone, two drugs that have demonstrated promise in reducing NSCLC risk, and determine whether they work in a clinical trial setting.

Dr. Wistuba and his colleague Dr. Humam Kadara are identifying biomarkers that could ultimately lead to the fist test to detect small cell lung cancer in its earliest and most treatable stages.

Dr. Beane will characterize how RNA expression in normal airway epithelial cells is affected by the presence of precancerous lesions and identify changes that predict if the lesions will become malignant or return to normal. Identifying these key molecular changes will contribute to early detection and possible chemo-prevention of lung cancer in high risk patients.

Dr. Byers is building on her discovery that patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) have an overabundance of the protein PARP1, which helps repair damaged DNA in SCLC cell lines and tumors. She is using the data from a Phase II clinical trial to discover which patients are most likely to benefit from treatment that combines a PARP inhibitor drug with chemotherapy.

Dr. Hassanein is using 164 proteins found only in lung cancer patients to develop a method to test the patient’s blood for its own antibodies to these proteins. His goal is to use these proteins as biomarkers in a blood test that will find lung cancer in its earliest, most treatable stage.

Dr. Maher is working to improve on the accuracy and usability of tests that identify lung cancer patients who are likely to relapse. He is using next-generation sequencing techniques to develop a signature set of key genetic changes  and convert it to a clinical test that will be able to predict who is at high risk for relapse.

Dr. Nair is developing a blood test to help determine whether a pulmonary nodule seen on a PET-scan imaging screen is cancerous. The goal of this test, which will make use of circulating molecular biomarkers, is to accurately determine which patients are most likely to have lung cancer and, therefore, should have biopsies or surgery.

Not every nodule detected on a CT scan is malignant. However, an invasive biopsy is often needed to determine this. Dr. Jeffrey Borgia’s team has discovered that malignant and benign nodules produce different types of proteins in the blood. Based on this finding, they are developing a simple blood test to predict which nodules require follow-up.

Patients with stage I and II lung cancer usually undergo surgery to treat their cancer. Sometimes, the cancer comes back. Using chemotherapy with surgery can prevent the cancer’s return. Dr. Carbone is studying how we can identify which stage I and II patients may benefit from chemotherapy.

Metformin is an FDA-approved drug for the treatment of diabetes. Dr. Edward Gabrielson and his colleagues have found that a gene called LKB1 is altered in 40% of lung cancer patients. He is studying whether lung cancer cells with mutations in LKB1 are sensitive to metformin. His ultimate goal is to use an already-approved drug for the treatment of LKB1-positive lung cancers.

Targeted therapies have shown great promise. However, up to 40% of patients with lung cancer do not test positive for a known target. Dr. Rebecca Heist is studying this group of patients and using DNA sequencing technology to identify novel targets for treatment.