PHILADELPHIA—A global, multi-institutional research team that includes Lynn M. Schuchter, MD, chief of Hematology/Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and program leader for the Abramson Cancer Center’s Melanoma Research Program, has received the L’Oréal Paris–MRA Team Science Award for Women in Scientific Research from the Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA), the largest private funder of melanoma research worldwide.
Lynn M. Schuchter, MD
The $900,000 grant, which also includes investigators from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), The Wistar Institute, Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre (University of Edinburgh), and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, will focus on the mechanisms that distinguish (and mark) fast-growing melanomas from those that are dormant.
Increasing in incidence every year, melanoma is the only disease where lesions barely two millimeters thick can metastasize throughout a person’s body. Some patients succumb to metastasis within months, while in others the tumor cells can remain silent or “dormant” for years or decades before striking. This differential in behavior is unclear and is the focus of the collaboration.
Researchers from the other institutions include team leader Maria S. (Marisol) Soengas, PhD, of CNIO, Ashani Weeraratna, PhD, of Wistar, E. Elizabeth Patton, PhD, of the University of Edinburgh, and Maria Soledad Sosa, PhD, of Mount Sinai.
There are four major goals of the three-year project. The first goal of the project is to identify biomarkers of active metastasis. Secondly, the team will define how tumor cells can become “dormant,” and why at some point, they get “awakened.” Both of these studies will exploit reagents accessible by the team, particularly a large set of clinical specimens, as well as sophisticated imaging models to visualize and trace melanoma cells in vivo from early stages of tumor development. The third goal aims to validate treatments that could attack both dividing and silent melanoma cells.
The fourth objective is to mentor and empower new female researchers in the melanoma field.
“Collaboration is at the crux of scientific research today because one needs to bring together people with unique and varied know-how and resources to make distinctive contributions,” Schuchter said. “The L’Oréal Paris and MRA grant epitomizes what research should allow us to do—exchange knowledge, enact ambitious science and empower women to cutting edge jobs in science.”
Schuchter is also co-principal investigator of a highly competitive cancer SPORE project in the United States, and is the current chair of the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Cancer Research Committee and member of the College of Physicians.
In 2016, the MRA has funded 17 additional grants to support a total of 46 investigators in 30 institutions spanning seven countries. To date, MRA has dedicated more than $79 million to foster important discoveries across the globe to better understand and treat malignant melanoma.
The full release on the grant can be found here.
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