STTR’s main priority is supporting the ground-breaking innovative research our members are conducting in the field of cancer research. With a strong focus on collaboration, our granting mechanisms were created to continue to advance research and finance cutting edge procedures and techniques.
In January 2014, we announced our Transformative Research Grants and Partial Molecular Profiling Grants. Each proposal was required to contain multiple investigators across different institutions and at least two different disciplines or departments.
Transformative Research Grants funds research which will provide funds for researchers to do proof-of-concept studies, which will lay the groundwork for longer-term projects and collaboration amongst researchers. The selected projects aim to generate information which will propel the field into new and exciting areas. These awards were given out prior to our adding bladder and sarcoma. We are looking forward to the new proposals from all ten solid tumor sites in 2015.
BRAIN
TITLE: Deconstructing Glioma Heterogeneity through Single Cell Genomic Analysis
Principal Investigators: Robert Rostomily, MD, and Patrick Paddison, PhD
BREAST
TITLE: Innovations In Tissue Sampling and Imaging of Bone Dominant Metastatic Breast Cancer
Principal Investigator: Hannah Linden, MD
COLORECTAL
TITLE: Discovery and Verification of Novel Biomarkers of Colorectal Cancer Recurrence
Principal Investigators: Christopher Li, MD, PhD, and Paul Lampe, PhD
HEAD AND NECK
TITLE: A Human/Mouse Co-Clinical Trial to Study Response to Small Molecule Inhibitors of G2/M Cell Cycle Regulation in p53-Mutant Head and Neck Cancer
Principal Investigator: Eduardo Mendez, MD, MS, FACS
LUNG
TITLE: Developing Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) Therapy for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
Principal Investigators: Sylvia Lee, MD, and A. McGarry Houghton, MD
OVARY
TITLE: Big Data Approach to Identify Molecular Basis for Clinical Phenotypes in Ovarian Cancer
Principal Investigators: Su-In Lee, MS, PhD
PANCREAS
TITLE: Developing an Implantable Polymeric T-Cell Delivery Device to Treat Unresectable or Non-Resected Pancreatic Cancer
Principal Investigators: Matthias Stephan, MD, PhD, and Venu Pillarisetty, MD
Molecular profiling of tumor samples has given clinicians and researchers insight into the tumor and potential treatments. STTR wanted to invest in our scientists' new projects by funding sample collection and clinical annotations. Our grant provided support and funding to collect 50 tumors via the NWBioTrust submission process. Our Data Abstraction team worked with the winning teams to create an Organ Specific Data Dictionary and entered all correlative clinical data from the medical record on these samples (with proper IRB approvals) and provided a full patient history of either identified or de-identified data based on IRB/privacy status.
STTR, in collaboration with NWBioTrust, arranged and paid for the procurement of biospecimens, an organ-specific data dictionary, and correlative clinical data for the following translational research teams: breast, colorectal, head and neck, lung and pancreas.
STTR staff work with leaders in each cancer type to build data dictionaries and customized databases in CAISIS. We provide clinical annotation and auditing services which are made available to faculty through IRB waivers and protocols.