LRCP Announces Awardees of the 2020 Fall Catalyst Grant Competition

The Awardees for the 2020 Catalyst Grants for Translational Cancer Research are: 

Dr. Alison Allan, Co-Applicant: Dr. Vasudeva Bhat
Role of novel lung-derived soluble factors in breast cancer stem cell activity and metastatic behavior.
Amount Funded: $25,000 (Translational Breast Cancer Research focus).

Dr. Rodney DeKoter
Mechanism of Ikzf3 driver mutations in Ph-like precursor B-ALL.
Amount Funded: $24,000 (Translational Leukemia Cancer Research focus).

Dr. Fred Dick
A screening approach for therapeutics that antagonize ovarian cancer cell dormancy.
Amount Funded: $25,000 (Translational Ovarian Cancer Research focus).

Dr. Ricardo Fernandes, Co-Applicant: Dr. Saman Maleki
Association between androgen receptor axis-targeted therapies and gastro-intestinal microbiota in patients with prostate cancer.
Amount Funded:$25,000 (Translational Prostate Cancer Research focus).

Dr. Douglas Hoover, Co-Applicants: Drs. Lucas Mendez, Aaron Fenster
Development and implementation of an accurate and efficient MRI-to-Ultrasound registration framework for focal dose escalation in prostate cancer.
Amount Funded: $10,574 (Translational Prostate Cancer Research focus).

Dr. Richard Kim
Drug uptake and efflux transporters and Tamoxifen therapy for breast cancer.
Amount Funded: $24,970 (Translational Breast Cancer Research focus).

Dr. Ana Lohmann, Co-Applicant: Dr. Scott Ernst
Body composition and melanoma outcomes in patients on immunotherapy.
Amount Funded: $25,000 (Keith Samitt Translational Research Grant).

Dr. Len Luyt, Co-Applicant:  Dr. Christopher Pin
Development of NUPR1 PET probes for pancreatic cancer.
Amount Funded: $25,000 (Translational Pancreatic Cancer Research focus).

Dr. Sarah Mattonen, Co-Applicant: Dr. Andrew Arifin
Radiomics and machine learning for outcome prediction following bone stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT).
Amount Funded: $25,000 (CRLP Translational Cancer Research Grant).

Dr. Anthony Nichols, Co-Applicant: Dr. Mohammed Imran Khan
Functional assessment of OMG and SPATA13 gene knockout to study anaplastic thyroid cancer progression.
Amount Funded: $24,314 (Keith Samitt Translational Research Grant).

Dr. Jim Petrik, Co-Applicant: Dr. Trevor Shepherd
Use of patient-derived xenograft models to develop novel therapeutics in ovarian cancer. 
Amount Funded: $25,000 (Translational Ovarian Cancer Research focus).

Dr. Andrew Simpson, Co-Applicant: Dr. Eva Turley
Hyaluronan-phosphatidylethanolamine polymers in the treatment and prevention of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma.
Amount Funded: $25,000 (Keith Samitt Translational Research Grant).

We graciously acknowledge the generous support of the Breast Cancer Society of Canada, The London Run for Ovarian Cancer, Lexus of London Golf Classic (prostate cancer), Blood Sweat and Spin (leukemia), Mr. Keith Samitt (undesignated cancer sites), The Baker Centre for Pancreatic Cancer and our other generous organizations and supporters of cancer research in London and the greater Southwestern Ontario region.

Congratulations and well done!