Three Hope Foundation grantees were announced at last week’s Spring 2015 SWOG Group Meeting in San Francisco. Following rigorous review processes, we are pleased to offer funding for the following research projects:
SWOG/Hope Foundation Impact Award
“Personalizing treatment for newly diagnosed AML using a novel ex vivo screen”
Marc Loriaux, MD, PhD of Oregon Health & Science University will apply this two-year award to support a clinical study testing the safety and feasibility of providing a personalized therapy along with standard chemotherapy for patients newly diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).
Dr. Charles A. Coltman, Jr., Fellowship
“A study of mutational load and response to PD-1 blockade in patients with locally advanced and metastatic desmoplastic melanoma”
Siwen Hu-Lieskovan, MD, PhD of the UCLA Medical Center will focus the work of her fellowship on a rare subtype of melanoma known as desmoplastic melanoma in order to test an emergent treatment hypothesis via a phase II clinical trial currently in development within SWOG.
SWOG Rare Cancer Fellowship
Victor M. Villalobos, MD, PhD of the University of Colorado Denver will utilize his fellowship to further his work in sarcoma research. Using several clinical trials strategies for different sarcoma subtypes, Villalobos aims to help SWOG develop correlative studies to maximize outcomes and research opportunities within SWOG’s Early Therapeutics & Rare Cancers Committee.