Career Development Awards from the Tow Center for Developmental Oncology
The Tow Center for Developmental Oncology (TCDO) Career Development Award seeks to promote the development of careers of scientists focused on cancers that affect children and young adults. The Award is for current MSK residents, fellows, and instructors who are engaged in mentored research projects; both MD physicians and PhD scientists working on problems with clear medical relevance are invited. Research projects must be related to the biology or therapy of cancers that affect children and young adults, but otherwise can be from any discipline of medicine and field of science.
2023
- Ylenia Cendon-Florez, PhD (SKI). Modeling KIAA1549-BRAF-driven pediatric brain tumors in the mouse. Mentors: Andrea Ventura, MD, PhD; Matthias Karajannis, MD, MS.
- Tal Cohen, MD (Pediatrics). Enhancing the persistence and anti-tumor efficacy of CAR-T and NK cells for pediatric malignancies through genetic disruption of death receptors. Mentor: Christopher Klebanoff, MD, PhD.
2022
- Sheila Alcantara, MD, PhD (SKI). Stem-Like Cancer Cells and the Immune Microenvironment in Metastatic Medulloblastoma. Mentor: Luis F. Parada, PhD.
- Oriana Miltiadous, MD (Pediatrics). Microbiome evolution in patients undergoing stem cell transplant and correlates with immune reconstitution and outcomes. Mentors: Jaap-Jan Boelens, MD, PhD; Marcel van den Brink, MD, PhD.
2021
- Melissa Lumish, MD (Medicine). Utilizing microbiome analysis and patient-derived organoid models to define molecular and immunologic determinants of early onset gastrointestinal cancers. Mentors: Karuna Ganesh, MD, PhD; Andrea Cercek, MD
- Sanam Shahid, MD (Pediatrics). Chimeric antigen receptor-modified natural killer cells targeting CD371 in pediatric acute myelogenous leukemia. Mentor: Katharine C. Hsu, MD, PhD
High Impact Exploratory Awards from the Tow Center for Developmental Oncology
The mission of the Tow Center is to develop fundamental insights into the molecular mechanisms of cancers in children and young adults, and to devise new approaches for their definitive therapy and control. There are many unanswered questions that need to be addressed for childhood and young adult cancers.
New questions and interdisciplinary approaches of relevance to young-onset cancer biology are encouraged. Innovative proposals that might not qualify for traditional sources of funding are invited, including those that are exploratory with substantial measure of risk, so long as this is balanced by clear explanation of significance and potential for scientifically or clinically meaningful reward.
2023
- Danwei Huangfu, PhD: Establishing Novel Genetic Engineered and Patient-Derived Models of pNETs
- Morgan Huse, PhD: Biomechanical Control of OTT-MAL-Associated Acute Megakaryoblastic Leukemia
- Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD: Targeting MYCN amplification and R-loops in neuroblastoma
- Eric Lai, PhD: microRNA deregulation in embryonal tumors with multilayered rosettes (ETMR)
- Megan Lim, MD, PhD: Exploiting epigenetic reprogramming of ALK+ anaplastic large cell lymphomas for novel immunotherapies
- John Petrini, PhD: The RING Domain of RTEL1: A Newly Discovered Ubiquitin Ligase
2022
- Christopher Klebanoff, MD, PhD: A gene therapy strategy to enhance the persistence and antitumor efficacy of human chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified NK cells for childhood cancers
- Viviane Tabar, MD: Therapeutic Targeting of Notch2Nl in Pediatric and Young Adult glioma
- Santosha Vardhana, MD, PhD: Altered T-cell homeostasis as a driver of chronic immune dysfunction in pediatric patients with B-cell malignancies
2021
- Chrysothemis Brown, MBBS, PhD: Uncovering novel immune-therapeutic strategies in pediatric neuroblastoma
- Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD: Exploiting R-loops as an epigenetic vulnerability of Ewing Sarcoma
- Stephen Roberts, MD: Modeling oncogenic transformation in neuroblastoma
- Wesley Tansey, PhD: A preclinical active learning platform for large-scale adaptive combination therapy screens for pediatric sarcomas
- Andrea Ventura, MD, PhD: A multidisciplinary approach to model, investigate, and treat desmoplastic small cell round tumors
- Thomas Vierbuchen, PhD: Role of BAF Complex Function in RAS- and HIPPO-regulated Transcriptional Programs Required for Cellular Competitiveness During Embryonic Development