American Cancer Society and Yosemite Award $1.65 Million to WashU Medicine Researchers at Siteman

Five Washington University investigators at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, have received $1.65 million total for research aimed at advancing the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The American Cancer Society (ACS) and Yosemite, a San Francisco-based oncology-focused venture capital firm, awarded the five scientists $330,000 each.

The grants are part of more than $6 million awarded by ACS and Yosemite to 20 scientists from institutions across the U.S. Washington University researchers received the highest number of awards, five. No other institution received more than two.

The 20 awardees range from early career scientists to internationally recognized interdisciplinary researchers, all focused on a core, common mission-advancing cancer research. They are poised to make an impact in immuno-oncology, as well as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in cancer prevention, detection, treatment and health-care delivery.

The five WashU awardees at Siteman are:

• Cory Berkland, PhD, a professor of biomedical engineering and of chemistry
• Gautam Dantas, PhD, the Conan Professor of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine; a professor of pathology and immunology, of biomedical engineering, of molecular microbiology and of pediatrics; and division co-chief of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine
• Eric Duncavage, MD, a professor of pathology and immunology and chief of Genomic and Molecular Pathology
• Daniel Marcus, PhD, a professor of radiology and director of the Computational Imaging Research Center at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology
• George Souroullas, PhD, an assistant professor of oncology

Their funded research is described below.

Berkland is leading a project to develop a tumor-retentive engineered cytokine as a rapid-to-clinic intratumoral adjunctive immunotherapy for cancer patients with solid tumors that have failed checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs) alone. Solid tumors typically do not respond well to CPIs, which are only effective in the 20% to 30% of patients with immunologically “hot” tumors that are infiltrated with mature immune cells. There is a need for therapeutics that can recruit and activate immune cells in tumors to unlock responsiveness in patients that are refractory to CPIs. Berkland’s team will advance an engineered variant of the cytokine GM-CSF designed to persist in tumor tissue to mitigate systemic immune-related adverse events and potentiate immune activity in the tumor microenvironment and draining lymph nodes. His group has evaluated multiple tumor-retentive GM-CSF modifications in published data and has demonstrated efficacy against murine tumor progression without inducing significant systemic cytokine responses. Here, they selected a lead-engineered GM-CSF to develop as a tumor immunostimulant alone or in combination with checkpoint inhibitor therapy. Proposed studies will investigate the safety and clarify the mechanism of anti-tumor efficacy with or without checkpoint inhibitor therapy.

 

Dantas is working to help patients with colorectal cancer, the No. 2 cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. He is improving his engineered probiotic, optimizing its design and function by performing in-depth characterization of its anticancer activity. Leveraging an interdisciplinary team of oncologists, microbiologists and immunobiologists, Dantas aims to move his novel treatment platform closer to being available as a new cancer treatment option, expanding the use of immunotherapies to treat colorectal cancer.

 

Duncavage is developing better machine learning-based tools to identify dysplasia, both from bone marrow and from readily accessible peripheral blood specimens. The data he generates will ultimately improve doctors’ ability to diagnose myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), the most common cancer of myeloid cells in the blood, carrying a high risk of transformation to fatal acute leukemia. The data may also lead to earlier detection of MDS and reduce unnecessary bone marrow biopsies.

‘

 

 

 

Marcus aims to improve multidisciplinary tumor board meetings by using AI to enhance how tumor boards function. When cancer specialists meet to decide on treatments, these tumor boards are crucial for coordinating care, sharing knowledge and advancing research. However, they often struggle with outdated technology that mixes electronic medical records, imaging systems and scattered documents, making their meetings less effective. Marcus is creating a new platform, called XAPO (XNAT Analytics for Precision Oncology), based on the open-source software XNAT. XAPO will make it easier to handle and analyze patient data, speeding up advancements in precise cancer treatments.

 

Souroullas conducts research on melanoma, B-cell lymphoma and epigenetic mechanisms. An important and very promising biological function that is being explored therapeutically in cancer is enhancing the body’s own defense system — the immune system — to identify and kill cancer cells. Souroullas found that a specific mechanism that regulates the immune system is highly dependent on the activity of a specific group of epigenetic genes, named ARIDs. He is further exploring these mechanisms to gain a full understanding of the interaction between the epigenome and pathways that may enhance the ability of the immune system to identify and remove cancer cells before they progress to an incurable disease. This cutting-edge research could result in preventing deaths in patients with various forms of cancer.