The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy Awards More Than $1 Million to Four Early Career Investigators
June 27 2024 - 2:15PM
Business Wire
PICI’s Early Career Researcher Awards equip the
brightest and boldest investigators with funding and connections to
propel the field of cancer immunotherapy
Since 2016, PICI’s Early Career Researchers
program has awarded more than $22.5 million through 53 total awards
to ascendant researchers, enabling them to accelerate their careers
and conduct independent, cutting-edge cancer research that drives
real impact
The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), a
collaborative consortium of the world’s leading immuno-oncology
experts, today named its 2024 class of Early Career Researcher
awardees who are poised to redefine what is possible in cancer
research. This year's awardees will receive over $1 million in
total to support their pioneering immunotherapy research, exploring
promising approaches involving gene networks, synthetic receptors,
metastatic stem cells and engineered immune cells that could lead
to life-saving treatments and bring us closer to a cure for
cancer.
Now in its eighth year, the Early Career Researcher program has
distributed 53 awards through 48 emerging investigators, with PICI
deploying over $22.5 million since 2016 to advance high-impact
immunotherapy research. In addition to funding, awardees also gain
access to PICI’s world-class network of immunotherapy experts and
research institutions, as well as leading-edge technology to
further advance their research.
"PICI's Early Career Researcher Awards have consistently
identified and supported the brightest minds in cancer
immunotherapy," said John Connolly, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer
at PICI. "These scientists bring fresh perspectives and innovative
ideas to the field, and their groundbreaking work has the potential
to transform the way we treat cancer. By providing them with the
resources and mentorship they need to succeed, we are investing in
the future of cancer research."
This year’s class includes four graduate or postdoctoral
researchers from the PICI Network – three Parker Scholars and one
Parker Bridge Fellow. Parker Scholars are early career scientists
entering their first postdoctoral appointment in cancer
immunotherapy under the mentorship of a PICI Investigator, while
Parker Bridge Fellows are senior postdoctoral researchers
transitioning into faculty positions following mentorship in the
lab of a PICI Investigator. Both awards grant membership in the
PICI Network, a group of internationally renowned IO leaders.
Meet the 2024 Early Career Researcher Awardees:
- Parker Bridge Fellow Zachary Steinhart, PhD, Gladstone
Institutes, whose research focuses on the interrogation of gene
networks controlling human cytotoxic T cell function with
next-generation CRISPR screens.
- “This award from PICI will be instrumental in advancing my
research in gene editing, in which I’m using CRISPR technologies to
better assess large numbers of genes in order to determine the best
candidates to put forward for clinical development,” said Zachary.
“This work could have important implications for enhancing cell
therapies for a variety of cancer types, and I look forward to
continuing my work with PICI’s support.”
- Parker Scholar Maxwell Foisey, PhD candidate, the University
of California, San Francisco, whose research focuses on how
novel hybrid synthetic receptors deliver immunomodulatory payloads,
enhancing solid tumor T-cell therapy.
- “As a Parker Scholar, I will gain access to resources and
opportunities that I would not have otherwise had, particularly
through collaborating with the PICI Network, which is full of
research pioneers working on bold ideas at the cutting-edge of
science,” said Maxwell. “I’ll be able to build upon my current work
being done as part of the Roybal Lab, which focuses on leveraging
synthetic biology to enhance CAR T-cell therapies for solid tumors,
an area with great unmet need.”
- Parker Scholar Debolina Ganguly, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute, who is working to identify the mechanistic
underpinnings by which metastatic stem cells promote systemic
tolerance to tumor antigens and suppress responses to
immunotherapy.
- “My selection as a Parker Scholar will help accelerate the work
we are doing at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to understand how
different metastatic sites differ in the ability to mount immune
responses. As cancer spreads to distant organs, it breaks down
organ-specific immune barriers, along with the total anti-tumor
immune response, which can differ from site to site,” said
Debolina. “This is important in the context of understanding how
different patients respond to therapies and how we can improve
those responses for patients who have metastases in different
organs.”
- Parker Scholar Sean Yamada-Hunter, PhD, Stanford
Medicine, who is studying harnessing engineered CD47 to develop
T cell and macrophage combination immunotherapy for rapid clinical
translation.
- “In our recent work published in Nature, we found that when CAR
T-cell therapy and anti-CD47 therapies are combined, macrophages
target T cells as well as tumor cells, limiting the efficacy and
the practicality of this combination. We developed a solution
through engineering the CD47 target to prevent anti-CD47 binding,
which removed this obstacle and allowed the two therapies to work
together," said Sean. “The award from PICI will allow me to
continue this research, potentially laying the groundwork for a new
therapeutic approach and giving me the foundation to eventually
start my own lab and research group.”
Awardees are selected from a highly competitive field of
applicants from PICI Network Institutions, which comprises the
world’s leading cancer research centers. They are chosen based on
the innovation and scientific approach of their proposed work, its
significance in advancing cancer immunotherapy, and its potential
to drive groundbreaking research in support of PICI’s mission to
accelerate the development of immune therapies and turn all cancers
into curable diseases.
To learn more about how to support PICI, visit
parkerici.org/donate.
About the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) is
radically changing how cancer research is done. Founded in 2016
through a $250 million gift from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and
philanthropist Sean Parker, the San Francisco-based nonprofit is an
unprecedented collaboration between the country’s leading
immunotherapy researchers and cancer centers. PICI Network research
institutions include Stanford Medicine; the University of
California, Los Angeles; the University of California, San
Francisco; the University of Pennsylvania; Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute; Gladstone Institutes; and Weill Cornell Medicine. PICI
also supports top researchers at other institutions, including The
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center, City of Hope, Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Institute
for Systems Biology and Washington University School of Medicine in
St. Louis. By forging alliances with academic, industry and
nonprofit partners, PICI makes big bets on bold research to fulfill
its mission: to accelerate the development of breakthrough
immunotherapies to turn all cancers into curable diseases. Find out
more at parkerici.org and follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly
Twitter) @parkerici, and on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240627123894/en/
Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) Eric McKeeby
emckeeby@parkerici.org
1AB Dan Budwick dan@1abmedia.com