DirectConnect
A newsletter for the Yale Cancer Center & Smilow Cancer Hospital communities
Director's Note
As many of you know, we must submit a renewal of our Cancer Center Support Grant every five years. This grant, which allows Yale to call itself an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, provides funding for our research infrastructure, pilot grants, and programs such as Community Outreach and Engagement, Training and Education, and our Plan to Enhance Diversity in the YCC. There are 56 Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the U.S., and Yale has held this distinction for 50 years. We are the only NCI-designated Comprehensive Center in Connecticut.
We submitted the grant in September 2023, and our site visit was on Wednesday of this week. Approximately 20 external reviewers from cancer centers around the country arrived on Tuesday afternoon and spent the entire day with us on Wednesday. Over 25 members of the YCC gave slide presentations and answered detailed and often probing questions. Although it will be weeks before we receive our final score on the grant/site visit, there is little question that the YCC made itself proud. Speaker after speaker provided outstanding commentary, and when the questions were tough, everyone came through.
In many ways, this site visit was the culmination of my first two years at Yale. I have never been prouder of my colleagues, or more grateful to work with all of you. Everyone worked so hard, and each and every person presenting to the site visitors came through with a spectacular performance. For every person who was presenting on Wednesday, there are dozens of others in the YCC/Smilow who are equally dedicated and capable. And there are so many individuals behind the scenes who have contributed and make all of this work possible. We have a truly great cancer center, and it is absolutely clear that we have the power to make it even stronger.
Thank you all for what you do and care deeply about every day.
Eric Winer, MD
Director, Yale Cancer Center
President and Physician-in-Chief, Smilow Cancer Hospital
YCC & Smilow News
New Precision Technology for Delivering Radiation
Earlier this year, Smilow Cancer Hospital became the first hospital in the northeast to offer new radiation delivery technology to precisely treat patients with bone and lung cancers. SCINTIX biology-guided radiotherapy, delivered by the RefleXion X1 unit, is able to assess the exact location of one or multiple tumors, as well as their individual biological signatures.
SCINTIX biology-guided radiotherapy (BgRT), delivered by the RefleXion X1 unit, uses a radioactive tracer that interacts with cancer cells to produce photonic signals from emissions. The system makes tumors their own worst enemy by using cancer’s acquired activity to specifically target diseased tissue. Given that not all tumors are created equal, biology-guided radiotherapy provides the unique opportunity to target the areas that are most biologically active, while sparing normal tissues.
» READ MORE
Notables
Accolades, Awards & Honors
Kudos and congratulations to colleagues who received recent good news for their work.
There is recent news about Pamela Kunz, MD, and a new publication she will lead by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, as well as about a soon-to-be new faculty member Dr. Anthony Daniels, an ocular oncologist and vitreoretinal surgeon by training.
Also, special awards recently have been announced for Jensa Morris, MD, Erin Gombos, MD, and Irene Piazza, DNP, RN, AOCNS, and Craig M. Crews, PhD was singled out by a national association for his “trailblazing research."
Giulia Biancon, MD currently a member in the laboratory of Stephanie Halene, MD was honored with an Eclipse award from the RNA Society and Gavitt Woodard, MD received the AZ Lung Cancer Research award.
» FOR MORE NEWS
Recent Grant Awards
Talking Points
Dr. Ash Alpert, was one of two guest speakers on the Journal of Clinical Oncology “Debunking Sex and Disentangling Gender From Oncology” on Jan. 25. The aim of the 20-minute podcast is to presents analyses and discussions centered on the findings published in the journal. Dr. Alpert , a YCC instructor of medicine and hematology at YCC, was first author on the paper published in May 2023.
Dr. Sajid Khan was the guest on a Jan. 5 JAMA Oncology Author Interviews, about his recently published paper “Immunotherapy Initiation at the End of Life in Patients with Metastatic Center in the US.” In the 17-minute talk, Dr. Khan explained that the paper followed his notice of a treatment trend in at end of life.
Dr. Natalia Neparidze, associate professor of Internal Medicine (Hematology), participated in a research seminar as an invited speaker at University of Milan in Italy on Jan. 19. Her talk “Myeloma: Biologic heterogeneity and guidance for treatment” presented her research data from Yale’s investigator-initiated trials and the correlative science in myeloma.
In mid-February Amer Zeidan, MD, presented the Pamela Katten Memorial lectureship at Chicago's Northwestern University on “Immune Checkpoint Inhibition and Novel Therapies for Myelodysplastic Syndrome/Neoplasms.” Dr. Zeidan is an associate professor of Internal Medicine (Hematology) and director of Early Therapeutics Research, Hematology.
Three Yale-Smilow Network physicians attended the ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancer Symposium in San Francisco in January — Victor Chang, MD, Justin Persico, MD and Yifei Zhang, MD. The three-day event included talks, poster presentations and a keynote address by Dana-Farber's Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH on “The Growing Problem of Early-Onset Gastrointestinal Cancers.”
Lectures, Podcasts, and More
Published Scientific Research
YCC has a long history of exceptional, high-impact research in basic, translational, clinical, and population sciences published in numerous journals.
Most recently they have included JAMA Oncology, Cell, The Journal of Thoracic Oncology, NMR in Biomedicine, Breast Cancer Research and Treatment and the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics, to name a few.
» READ MORE
Funding Opportunities
Grab Your Calendar
Monday, March 4 • noon. Cancer Biology Institute faculty search candidate seminar in the TAC auditorium by Dr. Norihiro Goto, M.D., Ph.D. from MIT and the Koch Institute, on "Intestinal Stem Cell Niche in Regeneration and Tumorigenesis."
Monday, March 11 • noon. Cancer Biology Institute faculty search candidate seminar Afroditi Petsakou, PhD, at TAC Auditorium. "The neuro-gut axis restores tissue homeostasis: a bioelectric signaling story."
Sunday, March 10 • 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closer to Free Ride Launch Party at the New England Brewing Co., 175 Amity Road, Woodbridge. (Ride Day is Sept. 7)
March 13-15 • Showcasing National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research Extramural Research: 75 Years of Excellence. On March 15, Barbara Burtness, MD, leader of Yale's Head & Neck Cancer SPORE is part of the panel “Catalyzing Excellence in Cancer Research: Moonshot, SPORE, and AHEAD."
Friday, March 15
• YCC Grand Rounds • 9 am • Abraham Hakimi, MD, presents on "Microenvironmental determinants of systemic therapy response in kidney cancer: From human to mouse and back." 55 Park St.
• Cancer Biology Institute Seminar Series • 3 pm • Hironori Funabiki, PhD, West Campus Advanced Biosciences Center, Conference Rm ABC 373. “Structural insights into context-dependent phosphorylation by Aurora kinases”
Saturday, March 16 • 14th Annual Multimodal Treatment of Spinal Tumors 2024 course is co-chaired by Ehud Mendel, MD, who is Nixdorff-German Professor of Neurosurgery; Executive Vice Chair, Neurosurgery; Division Chief, Spine, Neurosurgery; Disease Center Director, Spine Oncology Program, YCC.
Monday, March 18 • 2 pm. Cancer Biology Institute Faculty search candidate seminar Julia Li, PhD, 2:00PM at Brady Auditorium, talk titled "A previously missing link between repeat DNA, genomic instability, and viruses."
Friday, March 22
• 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 pm • Yale Cancer Center Translational Science Retreat, The Anlyan Center, 300 Cedar St., New Haven. Agenda to follow. As part of the retreat, Grand Rounds will be presented in the auditorium by Rafi Ahmed, PhD. "Cell Lifestyle in Chronic Viral Infection and Cancer: Implications for Immunotherapy."
• 7 am to 3:30 pm • Yale Post-ASH Review: Highlights of the 2023 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting. Anthony's Ocean View, New Haven
April 4—7 • NCCN Conference in Orlando • NCCN member institutions get discounts on registration fees and for the Advancing Oncology Nursing program, April 4. Use institution email & code MIAC24 at the registration summary. Select “apply” to reduce fee by 50%.
Recent Publications
Grants Fuel Cancer Research
The American Cancer Society recently chose four assistant professors in the Yale School of Medicine and one post-doc Fellow for research awards. Fellow Adam Krysztofiak, PhD, of Therapeutic Radiology was granted a two-year ACS award in support of his breast cancer research. Also, ACS Institutional Research Grants went to Timothy Robinson, MD, PHD—Non-invasive assessment of hypoxia as a biomarker of T-cell therapy response in relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphomas. Huaijin Ken Leon Loh, PhD—Understanding interactions between the autonomic nervous system and pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Salil Garg, MD, PhD—Defining the developmental heterogeneity of pediatric hepatoblastoma. Monica Valero, MD, FACS—STREAMLINE (Streamlining Time-sensitive Referrals and Exams for Women with Abnormal Mammograms from Low-Income or No Insurance Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups).
Lion Hearts, a non-profit, granted $150,000 in awards to three Yale breast cancer research projects.
» READ MORE
Coming Up
Yale SPORE in Lung Cancer Career Enhancement Program (CEP) Award
The CEP of the Yale SPORE in Lung Cancer has been established to educate the next generation of investigators committed to translational research in lung cancer. The CEP will provide support of up to $50,000 to promising junior investigators and/or establish investigators who have not previously conducted lung cancer focused research. Letters of Intent Due: Friday April 19, 2024. READ MORE
Yale SPORE in Lung Cancer Developmental Research Program (DRP) Award
The DRP of the Yale SPORE in Lung Cancer provides seed money to investigators to support studies with a strong translational component that have the potential to evolve into, or be incorporated as, a full Yale SPORE in Lung Cancer project. The purpose is also to generate preliminary data or evidence of collaboration for new NCI grant applications. Letters of Intent Due: Friday April 19, 2024. READ MORE
Yale Head and Neck SPORE Career Enhancement Program (CEP) Award
The CEP of the Yale Head and Neck SPORE has been established to educate the next generation of investigators committed to translational research in head and neck cancer. The CEP will provide support to promising junior investigators and/or establish investigators who have not previously conducted head and neck cancer focused research. Letter of Intent Due: Friday March 22, 2024. READ MORE
Yale Head and Neck SPORE Developmental Research Program (DRP) Award
The Yale Head and Neck SPORE’s DRP provides seed money to investigators to support studies with a strong translational component that have the potential to evolve into, or be incorporated as, a full YHN-SPORE project or to generate preliminary data or evidence of collaboration for other new NIH grant applications. Letter of Intent Due: Friday March 22, 2024 READ MORE
The Robert A. Winn Career Development Award to increase the diversity of patients enrolled in clinical trials is accepting applications from early-stage investigator physicians who are underrepresented in medicine. The program aims to strengthen partnerships between clinical investigators and the communities where their patients reside. Applications for the award, which is $120,000 per year for two years, are open until May 13. For more https://diversityinclinicaltrials.org Applications can be made at https://winnawards.smapply.io/