2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005

Members of the Damon Runyon scientific circle regularly publish findings on the latest cancer research and are frequently recognized for their contributions to the fight against cancer.  Below, you will find new discoveries in cancer research and the most recent honors bestowed upon Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation awardees, alumni and friends.

2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005

Members of the Damon Runyon scientific circle regularly publish findings on the latest cancer research and are frequently recognized for their contributions to the fight against cancer.  Below, you will find new discoveries in cancer research and the most recent honors bestowed upon Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation awardees, alumni and friends.

2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005

Members of the Damon Runyon scientific circle regularly publish findings on the latest cancer research and are frequently recognized for their contributions to the fight against cancer.  Below, you will find new discoveries in cancer research and the most recent honors bestowed upon Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation awardees, alumni and friends.

2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005

Members of the Damon Runyon scientific circle regularly publish findings on the latest cancer research and are frequently recognized for their contributions to the fight against cancer.  Below, you will find new discoveries in cancer research and the most recent honors bestowed upon Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation awardees, alumni and friends.

Our Theater Benefits are exciting cancer fundraising events that offer the chance to attend a dinner at a premier New York restaurant, followed by tickets to a successful or highly-anticipated Broadway show.  Guests also have the opportunity to hear first-hand from the scientists themselves about the impact that Damon Runyon funding and support has on their cancer research.

Winter Theater Benefit: Guys and Dolls

Friends of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation who joined us on February 25th for a special preview performance of Guys and Dolls at the Nederlander Theatre agreed that it was a vivacious and enjoyable show.  The evening began with dinner at Blue Fin, where four of our early career scientists spoke about their cancer research and thanked supporters personally.  After the performance, cast members Steve Rosen, who plays Benny Southstreet, and Tituss Burgess, who plays Nicely-Nicely Johnson, met with our guests for a lively question and answer session.
 
Based on the short stories written by Damon Runyon, Guys and Dolls is the classic musical comedy about rolling the dice and falling in love under the bright lights of Broadway. 

Fall Theater Benefit:  Billy Elliot

Friends of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation enjoyed a performance of the critically acclaimed musical Billy Elliot at the Imperial Theatre on December 4th.  The evening began with fine wine and Italian cuisine at BECCO, where guests had the opportunity to meet three of our early career scientists face-to-face.  All spoke about their cancer research projects and thanked the Foundation and its supporters for funding their work.

Billy Elliot is a musical based on the popular movie, which tells the story of a young boy living in a small industrial English town.  He discovers his talent and love for dance, despite the disapproval of his father and brother.

For more information on our Theater Benefits, contact Kim Kubert, Director of Special Events, at 212.455.0501 or kim.kubert@damonrunyon.org.

Partnership allows scientists to engage in discussion, develop connections more easily

New York, NY (February 19, 2010) – To develop more collaboration among cancer researchers and translational scientists, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has partnered with the clinical and translational online community CTSciNet.  This new partnership complements Damon Runyon's goal of accelerating the translation of discoveries into new tools in the fight to end cancer.  Translating laboratory research into clinical medicine is also the goal of the social-networking site CTSciNet, the Clinical and Translational Science Network.

Launched on October 20th by Science Careers, AAAS's career development portal, CTSciNet is an online community for people pursuing careers in clinical and translational research. CTSciNet aims to encourage and support scientists and trainees who wish to become a part of the clinical and translational research community. AAAS developed the site in partnership with several other scientific societies, now including Damon Runyon. CTSciNet is funded by a generous grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, a long-time supporter of Science Careers.

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation's mission is to identify exceptional early career scientists and provide them with funding to pursue innovative cancer research.  The Foundation supports the rising stars of science, emerging leaders who have great potential to achieve breakthroughs in how we diagnose, treat and prevent cancer.

The Foundation offers three prestigious awards:
•    The Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award supports physician-scientists dedicated to translating cancer research into new tools and treatment for cancer patients.  
•    The Damon Runyon Fellowship Award gives young scientists funding to enhance their cancer research skills, develop independence and explore novel ideas.
•    The Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award funds “high-risk, high-reward” cancer research that has great potential but lacks the preliminary data needed to obtain traditional funding.

CTSciNet wants to show early career scientists how they can contribute to the solution of one of the most important scientific challenges of our lifetimes: how to efficiently translate scientific breakthroughs into practical therapies for human disease. CTSciNet’s collaborative tools will enable Damon Runyon’s researchers to seek collaborators for their important research. CTSciNet’s current groups range from breast cancer research to clinical trials. Researchers can engage in meaningful discussion and form connections with other researchers while they explore CTSciNet’s extensive and growing library of career advice.

Other CTSciNet partners include the Association of American Medical Colleges, the American Federation for Medical Research, the American Physician Scientist Association, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association for Clinical Research Training, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Clinical Research Forum, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Health Research Alliance, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Science Translational Medicine, and the Society for Clinical and Translational Science.

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DAMON RUNYON CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION

The mission of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation is to identify the most brilliant and promising early career scientists and provide them with funding to pursue innovative research that will eliminate cancer as a deadly disease.  The Foundation has gained worldwide prominence in cancer research by identifying outstanding researchers and physician-scientists.  Eleven scientists supported by the Foundation have received the Nobel Prize, and others are heads of cancer centers and leaders of renowned research programs.  Since its founding in 1946, the Foundation has invested over $220 million and funded more than 3,200 scientists.  This year, it will invest approximately $9 million in the most outstanding young investigators in the nation.

100% of all donations to the Foundation are used to support scientific research.  Its administrative and fundraising costs are paid from its Damon Runyon Broadway Tickets Service and endowment.

For more information visit www.damonrunyon.org

Matthew L. Meyerson, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow ’95-’98, Current Sponsor) of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, led an international team of scientists including William R. Sellers, MD (Damon Runyon-Lilly Clinical Investigator ’01-‘05) and Todd R. Golub, MD (Innovation Award Committee Member, Board Member) to develop a genomic map of 26 different human cancer types.  They found over 100 sites where DNA from tumors is either missing or abnormally duplicated compared to normal tissues.  These genetic changes were not unique to a single cancer type but are present in several cancer types; this suggests the mechanisms that underlie these tumors are shared and could someday lead to common strategies for treatment. This study was published in the journal Nature. 

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Peter K. Vogt, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow '59) and colleagues at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, described the success of a new rapid drug development technique.  They used chemistry and supercomputer technology to design compounds that specifically block a class of protein kinases known to be activated in cancers.  These proteins also promote angiogenesis, or blood vessel growth to tumors.  The compounds were subsequently tested in animal models, where they were found to effectively block blood vessel growth.  The findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.   

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Maya Capelson, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow '07-'10) in the laboratory of Martin W. Hetzer, PhD, at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, identified a new function for nucleoporins, proteins of the nuclear pore complex.  Until now, it was thought that the sole function of nuclear pore complexes is in transport of molecules in and out of the cell’s nucleus.  These researchers demonstrated that nucleoporins are also present inside the nucleus where they bind DNA and regulate gene expression.  Certain nucleoporins are overexpressed in leukemia, colon and lung cancers; this new finding may indicate the mechanism of how nucleoporins are linked to cancer.  This research was published in the journal Cell.

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Guobin He, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow '06-'09) and colleagues in the laboratory of Michael Karin, PhD, at University of California, San Diego, reported that obesity, either dietary or genetic, actively promotes liver tumors in mice.  Obesity-promoted hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was dependent on increased production of factors that cause inflammation (cytokines IL-6 and TNF) and activation of the oncogenic transcription factor STAT3.  This chronic inflammatory response caused by obesity may also increase the risk of other cancers.  This study was published in the journal Cell.

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Grants totaling $1.54M give early career investigators independence to pursue novel ideas

New York, NY (January 21, 2010) – The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on supporting exceptional early career researchers and innovative cancer research, named 11 new Damon Runyon Fellows at its November 2009 Fellowship Award Committee review.  The recipients of this prestigious, three-year award are outstanding postdoctoral scientists conducting basic and translational cancer research in the laboratories of leading senior investigators across the country.  The Fellowship encourages the nation's most promising young scientists to pursue careers in cancer research by providing them with independent funding ($140,000 each) to work on innovative projects.

November 2009 Damon Runyon Fellows

Meelad M. Dawlaty, PhD, with his sponsor Rudolf Jaenisch, MD, at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, is establishing the significance of epigenetic alterations (chemical modifications of DNA) in brain cancer formation, or glioblastomagenesis.  The goal of his research is to determine the role of epigenetic changes in glioblastomagenesis.

Harrison W. Gabel, PhD, with his sponsor Michael E. Greenberg, PhD, at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, is investigating how dysfunction of ubiquitin ligase UBE3A, an enzyme that normally regulates amounts of specific proteins in the cell, leads to diseases such as the neurodevelopmental disorder Angelman Syndrome and common cervical cancers.  These studies can provide important insights into the mechanism of disease.

Nicholas R. Guydosh, PhD, [HHMI Fellow] with his sponsor Rachel D. Green, PhD, at The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, is studying how proteins are manufactured in cells.  Small changes in this process can lead to the production of defective proteins and result in many types of cancer.

Tom A. Hartl, PhD, with his sponsor Matthew P. Scott, PhD, at Stanford University, Stanford, California, is studying proteins called insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), molecules that are essential for normal growth during development.  When hyperactive, IGF signaling has been implicated in uncontrolled cell proliferation and can lead to a variety of cancers.  His goal is to understand key events in IGF regulation and how these may go awry in the development of human cancers.

Björn F.C. Kafsack, PhD, [HHMI Fellow] with his sponsor Manuel Llinás, PhD, at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, is examining how cell behavior is dependent on cell density (the number of other cells nearby).  He is using the parasite Plasmodium falciparum as an experimental model.  His goal is to apply this knowledge to understanding how cancer cells respond to their surrounding environment, resulting in tumor growth and metastasis.  

Rebecca S. Mathew, PhD, [HHMI Fellow] with her sponsor Danesh Moazed, PhD, at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, is studying how cell identity is maintained throughout the life of an organism.  She is focusing on the role of a protein complex called CLRC in modifying chromosome architecture.  Failure to maintain cell identity has catastrophic consequences, often resulting in cancer or other diseases.

Jelena Nedjic, PhD, with her sponsor Iannis Aifantis, PhD, at the New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, aims to understand the role of molecules that regulate cellular migration and adhesion during the development and metastasis of T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), a blood cancer arising from transformed immune cells.  The progression of the disease leads to severe metastasis to the central nervous system.

Duncan J. Smith, PhD, [HHMI Fellow] with his sponsor Iestyn Whitehouse, PhD, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, is investigating how the higher-order structure of DNA is accurately transmitted when cells divide.  Defects in this process are likely to play a role in the early stages of oncogenesis by giving rise to inappropriate gene expression.

Sabrina L. Spencer, PhD, with her sponsor Tobias Meyer, PhD, at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, is studying the cellular decision to proliferate or remain in a non-dividing state.  Using fluorescence time-lapse microscopy and mathematical modeling, she is working to extend our current understanding of this cellular decision and its deregulation in cancer. 

Robin Evans Stanley, PhD, with her sponsor James H. Hurley, PhD, at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, aims to understand how autophagy, the process of cellular “self-digestion,” is regulated in the cell.  She hopes that her research will help shed light on the role of autophagy in different types of cancer.

Alexandra Zidovska, PhD, with her sponsor Timothy J. Mitchison, PhD, at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, is studying the physical properties of the cell during cell division.  To do so, she is mechanically perturbing cells by physical confinement or application of external forces.  Her findings may result in new insights about the mechanics of cell division, contributing to a better understanding of how this process is disrupted in cancer.

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DAMON RUNYON CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION

The mission of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation is to identify the most brilliant and promising early career scientists and provide them with funding to pursue innovative research that will eliminate cancer as a deadly disease.  The Foundation has gained worldwide prominence in cancer research by identifying outstanding researchers and physician-scientists.  Eleven scientists supported by the Foundation have received the Nobel Prize, and others are heads of cancer centers and leaders of renowned research programs.  Since its founding in 1946, the Foundation has invested over $220 million and funded more than 3,200 scientists.  This year, it will invest approximately $9 million in the most outstanding young investigators in the nation.

100% of all donations to the Foundation are used to support scientific research.  Its administrative and fundraising costs are paid from its Damon Runyon Broadway Tickets Service and endowment.

For more information visit www.damonrunyon.org

Colleen Delaney, MD (Damon Runyon-Novartis Clinical Investigator '07-'10) of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, reported the first successful use of umbilical-cord blood transplants in a Phase I clinical trial to treat patients with acute leukemia.  This is a significant breakthrough because unlike bone marrow transplants, umbilical-cord blood transplants do not require a perfect match to the patient.  However, cord blood contains a low number of stem cells, making the time to engraftment lengthy and leaving the transplant recipient susceptible to potentially fatal infections.  In this study, the researchers expanded the cord blood stem cell population prior to transplantation by activating a signaling pathway called Notch.  These expanded cells were then infused into patients resulting in successful rapid engraftment.  Seven of the ten patients treated are still alive with no evidence of disease.  The findings were published in the journal Nature Medicine. 

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Three Pioneering Ideas in Cancer Research Granted Prestigious
Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Awards

New technologies offer opportunities to solve mysteries of cancer

NEW YORK (January 14, 2010) – The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation announced that three novel approaches to fighting cancer have won 2010 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Awards.  The prize of $450,000 is awarded each year to three projects by early career cancer researchers that have the potential to have a major impact on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

The 2010 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovators are:

Heather R. Christofk, PhD 

University of California, Los Angeles, California
Unraveling an old mystery using new technology

Scientists have known since the 1920s that one distinguishing characteristic of cancer cells is their altered glucose metabolism: compared to normal cells, cancer cells have a “sweet tooth” and use much more glucose from the environment.  This discovery has yet to be exploited for therapeutic benefit.

Dr. Christofk's goal is to identify the proteins within cancer cells that are responsible for their altered glucose metabolism.  She aims to grow tumors in mice, then turn off their metabolic “switches,” monitoring the result using advanced imaging technologies.  Her research will determine whether targeting tumor metabolism is a feasible approach for cancer therapy and may identify new cancer drug targets.

Dr. Christofk commented, "The field of cancer metabolism has re-emerged with a great deal of promise in the last few years, yet there are several fundamental questions still to be answered.  This award will dramatically accelerate my research and allow me to answer some of these critical questions on a much shorter timetable.  Thank you to the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and the Rachleffs for their generous support – this award is one of the greatest honors a young scientist could hope for!"

Joshua C. Munger, PhD 

University of Rochester, Rochester, New York
Applying a “systems approach” to understand cancer cell metabolism

Beyond the altered glucose metabolism being studied by Dr. Christofk, cancer induces many other distinctive metabolic activities that are important for cancer cell replication. 

Whereas previous studies often focused on individual metabolic activities, Dr. Munger is taking an expanded “global" approach by examining the rates of many metabolic processes simultaneously.  The goal of his research is to identify novel cancer-specific metabolic activities and define how they are genetically triggered.  Ultimately, he plans to explore new avenues to block these activities, thereby destroying cancerous cells.

Dr. Munger said, “Most funding agencies will not fund researchers whose proposals they deem ’too ambitious,’ instead preferring 'safer' projects.  The Damon Runyon Foundation is unique in supporting the ambitious ideas of young researchers, and in this respect, they fund research that otherwise would likely not occur.  I am extremely grateful for the Foundation’s support of my laboratory’s research."

Raffaella Sordella, PhD

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York
[Island Outreach Foundation Innovator of the Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award]
Defining new paradigms to understand drug resistance

New targeted therapies have been successful in treating certain cancers.  For example, for lung cancer, Iressa and Tarceva produce encouraging responses in Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinomas (NSCLC) with specific gene mutations.  However, clinical data shows that the tumors inevitably develop drug resistance, which results in relapse within a few years.  Currently it is not well understood how cancers develop resistance to drugs over time. 

Dr. Sordella aims to characterize drug-resistant lung cancer cells at the molecular and genetic levels, defining the requirements for their survival and ability to spread.  The ultimate goal of this research is to develop methods to therapeutically target these tumor cells in lung cancer as well as in other cancer types.   

Dr. Sordella said, “While risky, this project has the potential to provide life-changing benefits for a large number of cancer patients.  I am very grateful to the Damon Runyon and Island Outreach Foundations for this grant, which will allow us to fast-track this research.  Given the prestige associated with this Damon Runyon Award, I also hope that it will help us to gain additional funding from other sources."

Funding Daring Research

The Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award funds cancer research by exceptionally creative thinkers with “high-risk/high-reward” ideas who lack sufficient preliminary data to obtain traditional funding.  The awardees are selected through a highly competitive and rigorous process by a scientific committee comprised of leading cancer researchers who are innovators themselves.  At the final stage of selection, candidates are screened by an in-person interview with committee members.  Only those scientists with a strong vision and passion for curing cancer are selected to receive the prestigious award. 

This program is possible through the generous support of Andy and Debbie Rachleff and the Island Outreach Foundation.

Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation

The mission of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation is to identify the most brilliant and promising early career scientists and provide them with funding to pursue innovative research that will eliminate cancer as a deadly disease.  The Foundation has gained worldwide prominence in cancer research by identifying outstanding researchers and physician-scientists.  Eleven scientists supported by the Foundation have received the Nobel Prize, and others are heads of cancer centers and leaders of renowned research programs. Since its founding in 1946, the Foundation has invested over $220 million and funded more than 3,200 scientists.  This year, it will invest approximately $9 million in the most outstanding young investigators in the nation.

100% of all donations to the Foundation are used to support scientific research.  Its administrative and fundraising costs are paid from its Damon Runyon Broadway Tickets Service and endowment.

For more information visit www.damonrunyon.org

Contact:
Catherine Bright
Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation
Catherine.bright@damonrunyon.org
212.455.0506

David A. Fruman, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow '95-'98) of the University of California, Irvine, reported that Acute Leukemia cells containing a genetic rearrangement called the Philadelphia chromosome are sensitive to treatment with a compound called PP242, which blocks TORC1 and TORC2, two targets of the tyrosine kinase mTOR.  PP242 is more effective at targeting leukemia cells than the currently-used rapamycin, and also causes fewer side-effects.  These studies suggest that this compound could be a promising new therapeutic for leukemia.  The findings were published in the journal Nature Medicine. 

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Don X. Nguyen, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow '05-'08) and colleagues in the lab of Joan Massagué, PhD (Former Fellowship Award Committee), at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, identified a new process termed "tumor self-seeding" by which aggressive circulating tumor cells (CTCs) return to recolonize their tumors of origin.  The researchers found that self-seeding can accelerate tumor growth and angiogenesis through activation of cytokines IL-6 and IL-8, which attract the most aggressive CTCs back to the original tumor, and factors FSCN1 and MMP1, which mediate the physical infiltration of CTCs into a tumor.  These findings may lead to new targeted therapies that interfere with the self-seeding process and thus slow or prevent tumor progression.  This study was published in the journal Cell.

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Nathanael S. Gray, PhD (Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovator '08-'10) and colleagues at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, identified a new agent that can act on non-small cell lung cancers that have become resistant to the drugs Iressa® and Tarceva®.  Each of these drugs targets a protein called the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) kinase, which promotes cell growth.  The new compound, WZ4002, is highly specific for the form of EGFR in cancer cells while not affecting normal healthy cells; for this reason, the compound is less likely to produce side effects.  In the future, this compound may be an effective treatment for lung cancer patients.  These findings were published in the journal Nature.    

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