TARGETING MINIMAL RESIDUAL DISEASE IN OVARIAN CANCER
The majority of patients with ovarian cancer are diagnosed with late-stage disease. These women face cure rates as low as 15% depending on the subtype of ovarian cancer, a statistic that has not changed over the past several decades.
The majority of patients with ovarian cancer are diagnosed with late-stage disease. These women face cure rates as low as 15% depending on the subtype of ovarian cancer, a statistic that has not changed over the past several decades.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
- A key factor underlying these poor cure rates is the ability of cancer cells resistant to chemotherapy to persist after frontline treatment.
- This persistent minimal residual disease (MRD) is clinically undetectable and represents “the seed” that eventually manifests as cancer recurrence.
- The goal of this project is to transform the care of women with ovarian cancer by developing unprecedented capabilities for understanding and targeting MRD.
- To do this, the team will develop and benchmark the accuracy of new blood biopsy and “second-look” surgical technologies to monitor this state at high resolution including extensive use of single-cell analysis.
- Currently, trials of investigational frontline therapies use progression free survival as their primary endpoint. Significant costs and long duration of these trials stifle innovation and development of more effective initial therapies. This project includes clinical trials to use the rate of MRD after frontline therapy as a primary endpoint, de-risking testing of novel frontline therapies.
MEET THE TEAM
Alan D’Andrea, MD
Amir A. Jazaeri, MD
Britta Weigelt, PhD
Carol Aghajanian, MD
Fiona Chatterjee, BA
Grace Wolczanksi, BS
Kai Wucherpfennig, MD, PhD
Kathleen H. Burns, MD, PhD
Linghua Wang, MD, PhD
Mae Pryor, BA
Maxime Meylan, PhD
Narmen Azazmeh, PhD
Panos Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD
Paula T. Hammond, PhD
Rachel N. Grisham, MD
Sanghoon Lee, PhD
Shannon N. Westin, MD, MPH
Shengnan Huang, PhD
Siri Palreddy
Sohrab Shah, PhD
Stefani Spranger, PhD
Stéphanie Gaillard, MD, PhD
Tian-Li Wang, PhD
Victoria Gomerdinger, BS
Alan D’Andrea, MD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. D’Andrea received his Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School in 1983. He completed his residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and a fellowship in pediatric hematology-oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. He also completed a research fellowship at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he cloned the receptor for erythropoietin, the major hormone for blood production. Dr. D’Andrea joined the Dana-Farber faculty in 1990. He is currently the Fuller-American Cancer Society Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School, the Director of the Center for DNA Damage and Repair, and the Director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Dr. D’Andrea is internationally known for his research in the area of DNA damage and DNA repair. His laboratory also investigates the pathogenesis of Fanconi Anemia, a human genetic disease characterized by a DNA repair defect, bone marrow failure, and cancer predisposition.
A recipient of numerous academic awards, Dr. D’Andrea is a former Stohlman Scholar of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a Distinguished Clinical Investigator of the Doris Duke Charitable Trust, a recipient of the E. Mead Johnson Award from the Society for Pediatric Research, a recipient of the G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award from the American Association for Cancer Research, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.
Amir A. Jazaeri, MD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Jazaeri is a Professor and the Vice Chair for Clinical Research in the department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. As the Director for the Gynecologic Cancer Immunotherapy program, he has helped to establish a broad based immune-oncology program for gynecologic cancers that includes adoptive cell therapies, intraperitoneal immunotherapies, and translational immunobiology. His other areas of research interest include understanding the basis for minimal residual disease in ovarian cancer and innovative clinical trial designs.
Britta Weigelt, PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer and Intercepting Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Britta Weigelt is an Associate Attending Molecular Geneticist and the Director of the Gynecology Disease Management Team (DMT) Research Laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. Her research interests include the identification of biologically-relevant subclasses of gynecologic cancers and their driving molecular alterations. Her researchs brings together traditional pathology tissue-based techniques with genomics and functional studies, and the determination of strategies for disease-monitoring in gynecologic cancers using liquid biopsy techniques. Dr. Weigelt has made key contributions to the refinement of the molecular classification of breast cancers, and her studies have led to the identification of pathognomonic genetic alterations, including the discovery and functional characterization of a novel FHL2-GLI2 fusion gene as a driver of sclerosing stromal tumors of the ovary, and of two novel tumor suppressor genes, ATP6AP1 and ATP6AP2, which established a direct genetic link between pH regulation and tumorigenesis. Her laboratory has co-developed the first single cell DNA sequencing approach that could be applied to formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue samples and developed a novel assay and bioinformatics pipeline for the identification of BRCA1 and BRCA2 reversion mutations in cfDNA of breast and ovarian cancer. She is an author of over 240 papers and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the journals of Pathology and Modern Pathology. Dr. Weigelt’s laboratory works together with other GYN DMT members on many fronts and facilitates translational research efforts, including tissue procurement and single cell processing.
Carol Aghajanian, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Carol Aghajanian, MD, a medical oncologist and authority on gynecologic cancers, is the Chief of the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. She serves as Chair of the Gynecologic Cancer Committee of NRG Oncology. She is the Principal Investigator for the MSK National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN), Lead Academic Participating Site (LAPS) grant. Her research focuses on developmental therapeutics as applied to gynecologic cancers. She has earned several awards in recognition of her work including the MSK Louise and Allston Boyer Award for Distinguished Achievement in Biomedical Research (2003), the Visionary Medical Research Honoree by the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance (2012), the Michaele C. Christian Oncology Development Award, National Cancer Institute (2014), the Harry Long Multidisciplinary Award, Society of Gynecologic Oncology (2017), and the MSK Willet F. Whitmore Award for Clinical Excellence (2020). Another major contribution has been the commitment she has made to serving as a teacher and mentor for an emerging generation of medical and gynecologic oncologists at MSK and NRG Oncology. She oversees a faculty of 21 physicians at MSK and has made a tremendous effort to identify and cultivate young investigators in NRG Oncology who will develop into clinical and translational leaders. Indicative of these efforts is the fact that since 2010, she been awarded four Teaching Excellence or Master Teacher awards from medical institutions.
Fiona Chatterjee, BA
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Fiona Chatterjee is currently a graduate student in Stefani Spranger’s lab at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, where she is studying the role of type I interferon in inducing productive immune responses against ovarian cancer. She holds a BA in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley.
Grace Wolczanksi, BS
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Grace is a graduate student in Stefani Spranger’s lab at the MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, studying T cell responses in chemotherapy resistant ovarian cancer. She received a BS in Biological Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University.
Kai Wucherpfennig, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
The Wucherpfennig lab develops novel approaches for cancer immunotherapy by discovering resistance pathways against immune attack. They integrate studies in cancer patients with mechanistic studies to dissect the complex interplay between cancer cells and the immune system. Dr. Wucherpfennig is Chair of the Department of Cancer Immunology and Virology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a Professor of Immunology at Harvard Medical School.
Kathleen H. Burns, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Kathleen Burns received her MD and PhD in Molecular and Human Genetics from Baylor College of Medicine. She completed pathology residency and a hematopathology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and served as chief resident. Thereafter, Dr. Burns joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins and progressed through the academic ranks to Professor. She served as Vice Chair for Research and Programs in the Pathology Department and Director of the school-wide Physician Scientist Training Program. She was recruited to Dana-Farber as Chair of the Department of Pathology in 2020. Her honors and invited lectures include a Career Award for Medical Scientists from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Scriver Family Visiting Professorship in Genetics from McGill University, and the Daria Haust Lecturer of Pathology at Queen’s University. Her research laboratory focuses on transposable element expression and activity in cancer and on ways to use our understanding of that biology to inform new approaches for diagnosing and treating cancers.
Linghua Wang, MD, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer , Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, and The Data Science Hub
Dr. Wang is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Genomic Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Wang received her MD in Medicine and her PhD in Cancer Genomics and completed her postdoctoral training at Human Genome Sequencing Center, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, at Baylor College of Medicine. She was recruited to MD Anderson in 2017 and set up the Computational Biology Laboratory. Dr. Wang has significant expertise in computational biology, cancer immunogenomics, single-cell and spatial multiomics. Over the past few years, she has built a leading research program in cancer immunogenomics at MD Anderson and developed a collaborative, team-based approach to tackle cancer research. Her group has a vast experience in unraveling the heterogeneity and evolution of the complex tumor-immune ecosystems using the cutting-edge single-cell and spatial sequencing technologies, coupled with the state-of-the-art computation and modeling. Dr. Wang is the principal investigator of the CPRIT Individual Investigator Research Award and she serves as a co-Investigator for several peer-reviewed grants from NIH/NCI and U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Wang is also the recipient of the Sabin Fellow Award, two SPORE Career Enhancement Program Awards and three Institutional Research Grant Awards. She serves as the Bioinformatics Lead and project co-Leader for two MD Anderson Cancer Moon Shot Projects and she also leads/co-leads several additional single-cell studies. When she was at Baylor, Dr. Wang also contributed significantly to the NHGRI rare cancer projects, the NCI Exceptional Responder Initiative, TCGA and pan-cancer projects. Dr. Wang is a productive investigator and she has published 32 first- or senior-authored papers over the past few years. Among them, 23 were published in the top-tier or other high-impact journals. As site Lead of Data Science for the pancreatic and ovarian cancer programs funded by Break Through Cancer, Dr. Wang is extremely enthusiastic to collaborate with world-renowned leaders, talented data scientists, and the multidisciplinary research teams across five participating institutions to develop effective data science strategies to better understand, detect, and treat the most lethal cancers.
Mae Pryor, BA
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Mae Pryor is a PhD student in Paula Hammond’s lab at MIT. She is investigating the design of layer-by-layer nanoparticles for targeting minimal residual disease in ovarian cancer. Mae graduated with a BA in Chemistry from Smith College.
Maxime Meylan, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Narmen Azazmeh, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer, Intercepting Ovarian Cancer
Narmen Azazmeh, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Rameen Beroukhim at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology, master’s degree in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, and PhD degree in Cancer Research and Immunology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. During her PhD, she investigated the effects of cellular senescence and senolytic therapies on skin malignancies. In the Beroukhim laboratory, Dr. Azazmeh sets out to characterize novel structural variants across cancer types including ovarian cancer, and to develop high-throughput approaches for their detection and diagnosis.
Panos Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Panagiotis (Panos) A Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD is Director of Translational Research and attending oncologist in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His translational research career focuses on ovarian cancer and other gynecologic malignancies with an important niche in the areas of DNA Damage and Repair and Immunotherapy. His work has focused on unraveling mechanisms of resistance to chemotherapy and targeted agents, developing the rationale and preclinical data for novel drug combinations in ovarian cancer, and on identification of novel diagnostic and predictive biomarkers of therapeutic response in gynecologic cancers as well investigating their mechanistic implication in carcinogenesis. His research efforts in this area have been supported by several Harvard-wide, industry and national sources including the Department of Defense (DOD), Ovarian Cancer Research Program (OCRP) and the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR). As a clinical researcher, he is also involved as a principal investigator (PI) and co-investigator in several gynecologic cancer clinical trials. Dr Konstantinopoulos has served as a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Clinical Oncology, is co-chair of the Dana Farber Harvard Cancer Center (DFHCC) Audit Committee and a member of the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) Experimental Medicine Committee.After receiving his MD and PhD from University of Patras in Greece, Dr Konstantinopoulos completed internship and residency at State University of New York at Syracuse, followed by a medical oncology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. He also received a Master’s degree in Clinical Investigation from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Health Sciences and Technology.
Paula T. Hammond, PhD
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Paula T. Hammond is the Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Her research in nanomedicine encompasses the development of new biomaterials to enable drug delivery from surfaces with spatio-temporal control. She investigates novel responsive polymer architectures for targeted nanoparticle drug and gene delivery. She is known for her work on nanoparticles to target cancer, and thin film coatings to release factors that regenerate bone and assist in wound healing. More recently, she has worked on nanomaterials systems to treat osteoarthritis and staged release systems for the delivery of vaccines. Professor Hammond was elected into the National Academy of Science in 2019, the National Academy of Engineering in 2017, the National Academy of Medicine in 2016, and the 2013 Class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has also recently received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Margaret H. Rousseau Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement by a Woman Chemical Engineer in 2019, and gave the Materials Research Society (MRS) David Turnbull Lectureship also in 2019. Professor Hammond has published over 330 papers, and over 20 patent applications. She is the co-founder and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of LayerBio, Inc., a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Moderna Therapeutics, and a member of the Board of Alector, Inc.
Rachel N. Grisham, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Rachel Grisham is an Associate Attending within the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. She is the Section Head of Ovarian Cancer Treatment and the Director of Gynecologic Medical Oncology at MSKCC Westchester. She is board certified in Medical Oncology and received her Medical Degree at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Grisham performed her Internal Medicine Internship and Residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. She then came to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where she served as the Chief Fellow of the Hematology and Oncology Fellowship Program. Dr. Grisham subsequently joined the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service in 2012. Her research focuses on determining the molecular drivers of ovarian cancer and the development of targeted treatment strategies for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer. She has served as the principal investigator for over 25 clinical trials and serves on multiple committees within ASCO, NRG, and SGO. She is a graduate of the ASCO leadership development program, and has served on the GOG Partners Investigators Council, NRG Rare Tumor Committee, NCCN Ovarian Cancer Guidelines Committee, and the ASCO Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee.
Sanghoon Lee, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Sanghoon Lee is an Associate Professor of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas. Over 20 years, Dr. Lee has applied his translational research expertise toward improving and influencing care for patients, especially those with gynecologic malignancies at MD Anderson. He leads and oversees all aspects of translational study in gynecologic cancers, and further develops the translational research portfolio ensuring the acquisition of more comprehensive information from each patient in our clinical trial and non-clinical trial settings.
His main research interests focus on the investigation of the function and mechanisms of oncogenic and/or tumor-suppressive genes in immunochemotherapy sensitivity and resistance in ovarian cancer using preclinical in vitro and in vivo models. He is also interested in discovering novel small-molecule therapeutic targeting agents and explaining the mechanisms of drug resistance to immunochemotherapy in gynecologic cancers. Dr. Lee’s research also focuses on applying genome editing approaches to develop in vitro and in vivo models for use in gene therapy, cell therapy, and immunotherapy in gynecologic cancers.
Dr. Lee earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in Animal Molecular Genetics from Chungnam National University in South Korea. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in Gene-Environmental Biology with the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization in Lyon, France, and in Neurology and Hematology & Oncology at Harvard Medical School. In 2008, Dr. Lee began his career as a Senior Research Scientist with the Cancer Science Institute at the National University of Singapore. He joined the faculty of New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, as an Assistant Professor in both the Department of Pediatrics, Cell Biology and Anatomy in 2011. Dr. Lee joined the faculty of MD Anderson as an Assistant Professor in 2016.
Shannon N. Westin, MD, MPH
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Westin is an associate professor in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She focuses on developmental therapeutics and the use of biomarkers to predict response and recurrence in gynecologic malignancies. She currently serves as the Director of Early Drug Development and Phase I trials in her department and is a Co-Director of the institutional Ovarian Cancer Moonshot. Dr. Westin is currently the PI or co-PI for greater than 30 novel treatment trials in gynecologic malignancies. In addition to previously serving on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Uterine Task Force and Gynecologic Cancer Steering Committee (GCSC), she currently serves as a co-chair of the GCSC Ovarian Cancer Task Force and the NCI Ovarian Cancer Clinical Trials Planning Meeting.
Shengnan Huang, PhD
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer, Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Shengnan is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Belcher group of at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She is currently working on cancer detection and vaccination. Her PhD thesis focuses on early detection of ovarian cancer with NIR-II fluorescence.
Siri Palreddy
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: The Data Science Hub, Intercepting Ovarian Cancer,Revolutionizing GBM Drug Development Through Serial Biopsies, Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Siri Palreddy is a Clinical Research Coordinator for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and works across the Break Through Cancer TeamLabs. She recently graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, holding a BA in Biology and English.
Sohrab Shah, PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer and Intercepting Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Shah is the Chief of Computational Oncology in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and holds the Nicholls-Biondi Endowed Chair in Computational Oncology. He oversees a program of seven tenure-track principal investigators at MSKCC all dedicated to advancing computational biology applied to cancer research. Dr. Shah holds a PhD in computer science and his laboratory focuses on studying cancer evolution through combining advanced genomics with computational modeling. His work in this area has made fundamental advances in understanding how ovarian cancers evolve, how ovarian cancer cells interact with their immune microenvironments, and how cancer cells achieve drug resistance. His work has been published in leading scientific journals such as Nature, Cell, Nature Genetics, and Nature Methods amongst others.
Stefani Spranger, PhD
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Spranger, PhD pursued her scientific training at Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, Germany, first as an undergraduate in biology and then completing a PhD in immunology. She then joined the University of Chicago as a postdoctoral fellow, supported by the German Research Foundation and the Cancer Research Institute, later moving to her current position as assistant professor at the MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She has been awarded the Howard S. (1953) and Linda B. Stern Career Development Professorship and is a Pew-Stewart Scholar. Her work seeks to elucidate the mechanisms and pathways underlying the interaction between the immune system and cancer using mouse models that recapitulate the co-evolution of tumor progression and the anti-tumor immune response. One major emphasis of her work is on dendritic cell and T cell interactions both during T cell activation in the lymph node and also in the tumor microenvironment.
Stéphanie Gaillard, MD, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Stéphanie Gaillard, MD, PhD, is Director of Gynecologic Cancer Trials and Co-director of the Developmental Therapeutics and Phase I Clinical Trials Program for The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, she was a faculty member at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Gaillard earned her medical degree and doctorate of philosophy in cancer biology from Duke University. She then completed her residency training in internal medicine and fellowship training in medical oncology at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Gaillard specializes in the treatment of gynecologic malignancies, including ovarian, endometrial, and cervical cancers. Her work focuses on developing clinical trials that aim to improve outcomes using promising new biologic, targeted, and immune therapies in addition to standard treatment regimens. Her translational research program focuses on understanding mechanisms of resistance to therapy and the immune environment associated with gynecologic cancers. Dr. Gaillard has been honored with several awards including the Liz Tilberis Early Career Award from the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and a Young Investigator Award from the Conquer Cancer Foundation. She was a scholar for the NIH Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) and is a recipient of the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) Foundation Scholar Investigator Award. Dr. Gaillard serves as Co-chair of the NRG Oncology Phase I subcommittee and as the SPORE representative to the NCI Gynecologic Cancer Steering Comittee. She is the primary author or co-author of numerous publications and book chapters, and has presented her research both domestically and abroad.
Tian-Li Wang, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Tian-Li Wang is a Professor of Pathology at The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine. She serves as the Director of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory of Female Reproductive Cancer at JHU. She has been a leader or co-leader of government-funded program projects. Among them are two multi-institutional Consortium grants funded by DoD-CDMRP, focusing on ovarian cancer early diagnosis and disease prevention.
Dr. Wang received her PhD in Physiology at JHU, pursued a post-doctoral fellowship in Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, and took additional training in Cancer Genetics at the Howard Hughes Medical Institutions. She is interested in contributing her diverse training experiences and background to Break Through Cancer’s research and educational endeavors.
Victoria Gomerdinger, BS
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLabs: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Victoria Gomerdinger is a PhD student in Paula Hammond’s lab in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. She is engineering layer-by-layer nanoparticles to target ovarian cancer and immune cells for the delivery of potent therapeutics. Victoria graduated with a BS in Chemical Engineering from Yale University.
MEET THE TEAM
View Team
Alan D’Andrea, MD
Amir A. Jazaeri, MD
Britta Weigelt, PhD
Carol Aghajanian, MD
Fiona Chatterjee, BA
Grace Wolczanksi, BS
Kai Wucherpfennig, MD, PhD
Kathleen H. Burns, MD, PhD
Linghua Wang, MD, PhD
Mae Pryor, BA
Maxime Meylan, PhD
Narmen Azazmeh, PhD
Panos Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD
Paula T. Hammond, PhD
Rachel N. Grisham, MD
Sanghoon Lee, PhD
Shannon N. Westin, MD, MPH
Shengnan Huang, PhD
Siri Palreddy
Sohrab Shah, PhD
Stefani Spranger, PhD
Stéphanie Gaillard, MD, PhD
Tian-Li Wang, PhD
Victoria Gomerdinger, BS
Alan D’Andrea, MD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. D’Andrea received his Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School in 1983. He completed his residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and a fellowship in pediatric hematology-oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. He also completed a research fellowship at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he cloned the receptor for erythropoietin, the major hormone for blood production. Dr. D’Andrea joined the Dana-Farber faculty in 1990. He is currently the Fuller-American Cancer Society Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School, the Director of the Center for DNA Damage and Repair, and the Director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Dr. D’Andrea is internationally known for his research in the area of DNA damage and DNA repair. His laboratory also investigates the pathogenesis of Fanconi Anemia, a human genetic disease characterized by a DNA repair defect, bone marrow failure, and cancer predisposition.
A recipient of numerous academic awards, Dr. D’Andrea is a former Stohlman Scholar of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a Distinguished Clinical Investigator of the Doris Duke Charitable Trust, a recipient of the E. Mead Johnson Award from the Society for Pediatric Research, a recipient of the G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award from the American Association for Cancer Research, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.
Amir A. Jazaeri, MD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Jazaeri is a Professor and the Vice Chair for Clinical Research in the department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. As the Director for the Gynecologic Cancer Immunotherapy program, he has helped to establish a broad based immune-oncology program for gynecologic cancers that includes adoptive cell therapies, intraperitoneal immunotherapies, and translational immunobiology. His other areas of research interest include understanding the basis for minimal residual disease in ovarian cancer and innovative clinical trial designs.
Britta Weigelt, PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer and Intercepting Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Britta Weigelt is an Associate Attending Molecular Geneticist and the Director of the Gynecology Disease Management Team (DMT) Research Laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. Her research interests include the identification of biologically-relevant subclasses of gynecologic cancers and their driving molecular alterations. Her researchs brings together traditional pathology tissue-based techniques with genomics and functional studies, and the determination of strategies for disease-monitoring in gynecologic cancers using liquid biopsy techniques. Dr. Weigelt has made key contributions to the refinement of the molecular classification of breast cancers, and her studies have led to the identification of pathognomonic genetic alterations, including the discovery and functional characterization of a novel FHL2-GLI2 fusion gene as a driver of sclerosing stromal tumors of the ovary, and of two novel tumor suppressor genes, ATP6AP1 and ATP6AP2, which established a direct genetic link between pH regulation and tumorigenesis. Her laboratory has co-developed the first single cell DNA sequencing approach that could be applied to formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue samples and developed a novel assay and bioinformatics pipeline for the identification of BRCA1 and BRCA2 reversion mutations in cfDNA of breast and ovarian cancer. She is an author of over 240 papers and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the journals of Pathology and Modern Pathology. Dr. Weigelt’s laboratory works together with other GYN DMT members on many fronts and facilitates translational research efforts, including tissue procurement and single cell processing.
Carol Aghajanian, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Carol Aghajanian, MD, a medical oncologist and authority on gynecologic cancers, is the Chief of the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. She serves as Chair of the Gynecologic Cancer Committee of NRG Oncology. She is the Principal Investigator for the MSK National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN), Lead Academic Participating Site (LAPS) grant. Her research focuses on developmental therapeutics as applied to gynecologic cancers. She has earned several awards in recognition of her work including the MSK Louise and Allston Boyer Award for Distinguished Achievement in Biomedical Research (2003), the Visionary Medical Research Honoree by the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance (2012), the Michaele C. Christian Oncology Development Award, National Cancer Institute (2014), the Harry Long Multidisciplinary Award, Society of Gynecologic Oncology (2017), and the MSK Willet F. Whitmore Award for Clinical Excellence (2020). Another major contribution has been the commitment she has made to serving as a teacher and mentor for an emerging generation of medical and gynecologic oncologists at MSK and NRG Oncology. She oversees a faculty of 21 physicians at MSK and has made a tremendous effort to identify and cultivate young investigators in NRG Oncology who will develop into clinical and translational leaders. Indicative of these efforts is the fact that since 2010, she been awarded four Teaching Excellence or Master Teacher awards from medical institutions.
Fiona Chatterjee, BA
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Fiona Chatterjee is currently a graduate student in Stefani Spranger’s lab at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, where she is studying the role of type I interferon in inducing productive immune responses against ovarian cancer. She holds a BA in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley.
Grace Wolczanksi, BS
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Grace is a graduate student in Stefani Spranger’s lab at the MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, studying T cell responses in chemotherapy resistant ovarian cancer. She received a BS in Biological Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University.
Kai Wucherpfennig, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
The Wucherpfennig lab develops novel approaches for cancer immunotherapy by discovering resistance pathways against immune attack. They integrate studies in cancer patients with mechanistic studies to dissect the complex interplay between cancer cells and the immune system. Dr. Wucherpfennig is Chair of the Department of Cancer Immunology and Virology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a Professor of Immunology at Harvard Medical School.
Kathleen H. Burns, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Kathleen Burns received her MD and PhD in Molecular and Human Genetics from Baylor College of Medicine. She completed pathology residency and a hematopathology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and served as chief resident. Thereafter, Dr. Burns joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins and progressed through the academic ranks to Professor. She served as Vice Chair for Research and Programs in the Pathology Department and Director of the school-wide Physician Scientist Training Program. She was recruited to Dana-Farber as Chair of the Department of Pathology in 2020. Her honors and invited lectures include a Career Award for Medical Scientists from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Scriver Family Visiting Professorship in Genetics from McGill University, and the Daria Haust Lecturer of Pathology at Queen’s University. Her research laboratory focuses on transposable element expression and activity in cancer and on ways to use our understanding of that biology to inform new approaches for diagnosing and treating cancers.
Linghua Wang, MD, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer , Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, and The Data Science Hub
Dr. Wang is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Genomic Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Wang received her MD in Medicine and her PhD in Cancer Genomics and completed her postdoctoral training at Human Genome Sequencing Center, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, at Baylor College of Medicine. She was recruited to MD Anderson in 2017 and set up the Computational Biology Laboratory. Dr. Wang has significant expertise in computational biology, cancer immunogenomics, single-cell and spatial multiomics. Over the past few years, she has built a leading research program in cancer immunogenomics at MD Anderson and developed a collaborative, team-based approach to tackle cancer research. Her group has a vast experience in unraveling the heterogeneity and evolution of the complex tumor-immune ecosystems using the cutting-edge single-cell and spatial sequencing technologies, coupled with the state-of-the-art computation and modeling. Dr. Wang is the principal investigator of the CPRIT Individual Investigator Research Award and she serves as a co-Investigator for several peer-reviewed grants from NIH/NCI and U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Wang is also the recipient of the Sabin Fellow Award, two SPORE Career Enhancement Program Awards and three Institutional Research Grant Awards. She serves as the Bioinformatics Lead and project co-Leader for two MD Anderson Cancer Moon Shot Projects and she also leads/co-leads several additional single-cell studies. When she was at Baylor, Dr. Wang also contributed significantly to the NHGRI rare cancer projects, the NCI Exceptional Responder Initiative, TCGA and pan-cancer projects. Dr. Wang is a productive investigator and she has published 32 first- or senior-authored papers over the past few years. Among them, 23 were published in the top-tier or other high-impact journals. As site Lead of Data Science for the pancreatic and ovarian cancer programs funded by Break Through Cancer, Dr. Wang is extremely enthusiastic to collaborate with world-renowned leaders, talented data scientists, and the multidisciplinary research teams across five participating institutions to develop effective data science strategies to better understand, detect, and treat the most lethal cancers.
Mae Pryor, BA
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Mae Pryor is a PhD student in Paula Hammond’s lab at MIT. She is investigating the design of layer-by-layer nanoparticles for targeting minimal residual disease in ovarian cancer. Mae graduated with a BA in Chemistry from Smith College.
Maxime Meylan, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Narmen Azazmeh, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer, Intercepting Ovarian Cancer
Narmen Azazmeh, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Rameen Beroukhim at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology, master’s degree in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, and PhD degree in Cancer Research and Immunology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. During her PhD, she investigated the effects of cellular senescence and senolytic therapies on skin malignancies. In the Beroukhim laboratory, Dr. Azazmeh sets out to characterize novel structural variants across cancer types including ovarian cancer, and to develop high-throughput approaches for their detection and diagnosis.
Panos Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Panagiotis (Panos) A Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD is Director of Translational Research and attending oncologist in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His translational research career focuses on ovarian cancer and other gynecologic malignancies with an important niche in the areas of DNA Damage and Repair and Immunotherapy. His work has focused on unraveling mechanisms of resistance to chemotherapy and targeted agents, developing the rationale and preclinical data for novel drug combinations in ovarian cancer, and on identification of novel diagnostic and predictive biomarkers of therapeutic response in gynecologic cancers as well investigating their mechanistic implication in carcinogenesis. His research efforts in this area have been supported by several Harvard-wide, industry and national sources including the Department of Defense (DOD), Ovarian Cancer Research Program (OCRP) and the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR). As a clinical researcher, he is also involved as a principal investigator (PI) and co-investigator in several gynecologic cancer clinical trials. Dr Konstantinopoulos has served as a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Clinical Oncology, is co-chair of the Dana Farber Harvard Cancer Center (DFHCC) Audit Committee and a member of the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) Experimental Medicine Committee.After receiving his MD and PhD from University of Patras in Greece, Dr Konstantinopoulos completed internship and residency at State University of New York at Syracuse, followed by a medical oncology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. He also received a Master’s degree in Clinical Investigation from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Health Sciences and Technology.
Paula T. Hammond, PhD
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Paula T. Hammond is the Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Her research in nanomedicine encompasses the development of new biomaterials to enable drug delivery from surfaces with spatio-temporal control. She investigates novel responsive polymer architectures for targeted nanoparticle drug and gene delivery. She is known for her work on nanoparticles to target cancer, and thin film coatings to release factors that regenerate bone and assist in wound healing. More recently, she has worked on nanomaterials systems to treat osteoarthritis and staged release systems for the delivery of vaccines. Professor Hammond was elected into the National Academy of Science in 2019, the National Academy of Engineering in 2017, the National Academy of Medicine in 2016, and the 2013 Class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has also recently received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Margaret H. Rousseau Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement by a Woman Chemical Engineer in 2019, and gave the Materials Research Society (MRS) David Turnbull Lectureship also in 2019. Professor Hammond has published over 330 papers, and over 20 patent applications. She is the co-founder and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of LayerBio, Inc., a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Moderna Therapeutics, and a member of the Board of Alector, Inc.
Rachel N. Grisham, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Rachel Grisham is an Associate Attending within the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. She is the Section Head of Ovarian Cancer Treatment and the Director of Gynecologic Medical Oncology at MSKCC Westchester. She is board certified in Medical Oncology and received her Medical Degree at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Grisham performed her Internal Medicine Internship and Residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. She then came to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where she served as the Chief Fellow of the Hematology and Oncology Fellowship Program. Dr. Grisham subsequently joined the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service in 2012. Her research focuses on determining the molecular drivers of ovarian cancer and the development of targeted treatment strategies for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer. She has served as the principal investigator for over 25 clinical trials and serves on multiple committees within ASCO, NRG, and SGO. She is a graduate of the ASCO leadership development program, and has served on the GOG Partners Investigators Council, NRG Rare Tumor Committee, NCCN Ovarian Cancer Guidelines Committee, and the ASCO Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee.
Sanghoon Lee, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Sanghoon Lee is an Associate Professor of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas. Over 20 years, Dr. Lee has applied his translational research expertise toward improving and influencing care for patients, especially those with gynecologic malignancies at MD Anderson. He leads and oversees all aspects of translational study in gynecologic cancers, and further develops the translational research portfolio ensuring the acquisition of more comprehensive information from each patient in our clinical trial and non-clinical trial settings.
His main research interests focus on the investigation of the function and mechanisms of oncogenic and/or tumor-suppressive genes in immunochemotherapy sensitivity and resistance in ovarian cancer using preclinical in vitro and in vivo models. He is also interested in discovering novel small-molecule therapeutic targeting agents and explaining the mechanisms of drug resistance to immunochemotherapy in gynecologic cancers. Dr. Lee’s research also focuses on applying genome editing approaches to develop in vitro and in vivo models for use in gene therapy, cell therapy, and immunotherapy in gynecologic cancers.
Dr. Lee earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in Animal Molecular Genetics from Chungnam National University in South Korea. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in Gene-Environmental Biology with the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization in Lyon, France, and in Neurology and Hematology & Oncology at Harvard Medical School. In 2008, Dr. Lee began his career as a Senior Research Scientist with the Cancer Science Institute at the National University of Singapore. He joined the faculty of New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, as an Assistant Professor in both the Department of Pediatrics, Cell Biology and Anatomy in 2011. Dr. Lee joined the faculty of MD Anderson as an Assistant Professor in 2016.
Shannon N. Westin, MD, MPH
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Westin is an associate professor in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She focuses on developmental therapeutics and the use of biomarkers to predict response and recurrence in gynecologic malignancies. She currently serves as the Director of Early Drug Development and Phase I trials in her department and is a Co-Director of the institutional Ovarian Cancer Moonshot. Dr. Westin is currently the PI or co-PI for greater than 30 novel treatment trials in gynecologic malignancies. In addition to previously serving on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Uterine Task Force and Gynecologic Cancer Steering Committee (GCSC), she currently serves as a co-chair of the GCSC Ovarian Cancer Task Force and the NCI Ovarian Cancer Clinical Trials Planning Meeting.
Shengnan Huang, PhD
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer, Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Shengnan is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Belcher group of at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She is currently working on cancer detection and vaccination. Her PhD thesis focuses on early detection of ovarian cancer with NIR-II fluorescence.
Siri Palreddy
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: The Data Science Hub, Intercepting Ovarian Cancer,Revolutionizing GBM Drug Development Through Serial Biopsies, Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Siri Palreddy is a Clinical Research Coordinator for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and works across the Break Through Cancer TeamLabs. She recently graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, holding a BA in Biology and English.
Sohrab Shah, PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer and Intercepting Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Shah is the Chief of Computational Oncology in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and holds the Nicholls-Biondi Endowed Chair in Computational Oncology. He oversees a program of seven tenure-track principal investigators at MSKCC all dedicated to advancing computational biology applied to cancer research. Dr. Shah holds a PhD in computer science and his laboratory focuses on studying cancer evolution through combining advanced genomics with computational modeling. His work in this area has made fundamental advances in understanding how ovarian cancers evolve, how ovarian cancer cells interact with their immune microenvironments, and how cancer cells achieve drug resistance. His work has been published in leading scientific journals such as Nature, Cell, Nature Genetics, and Nature Methods amongst others.
Stefani Spranger, PhD
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Spranger, PhD pursued her scientific training at Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, Germany, first as an undergraduate in biology and then completing a PhD in immunology. She then joined the University of Chicago as a postdoctoral fellow, supported by the German Research Foundation and the Cancer Research Institute, later moving to her current position as assistant professor at the MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She has been awarded the Howard S. (1953) and Linda B. Stern Career Development Professorship and is a Pew-Stewart Scholar. Her work seeks to elucidate the mechanisms and pathways underlying the interaction between the immune system and cancer using mouse models that recapitulate the co-evolution of tumor progression and the anti-tumor immune response. One major emphasis of her work is on dendritic cell and T cell interactions both during T cell activation in the lymph node and also in the tumor microenvironment.
Stéphanie Gaillard, MD, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Stéphanie Gaillard, MD, PhD, is Director of Gynecologic Cancer Trials and Co-director of the Developmental Therapeutics and Phase I Clinical Trials Program for The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, she was a faculty member at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Gaillard earned her medical degree and doctorate of philosophy in cancer biology from Duke University. She then completed her residency training in internal medicine and fellowship training in medical oncology at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Gaillard specializes in the treatment of gynecologic malignancies, including ovarian, endometrial, and cervical cancers. Her work focuses on developing clinical trials that aim to improve outcomes using promising new biologic, targeted, and immune therapies in addition to standard treatment regimens. Her translational research program focuses on understanding mechanisms of resistance to therapy and the immune environment associated with gynecologic cancers. Dr. Gaillard has been honored with several awards including the Liz Tilberis Early Career Award from the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and a Young Investigator Award from the Conquer Cancer Foundation. She was a scholar for the NIH Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) and is a recipient of the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) Foundation Scholar Investigator Award. Dr. Gaillard serves as Co-chair of the NRG Oncology Phase I subcommittee and as the SPORE representative to the NCI Gynecologic Cancer Steering Comittee. She is the primary author or co-author of numerous publications and book chapters, and has presented her research both domestically and abroad.
Tian-Li Wang, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Tian-Li Wang is a Professor of Pathology at The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine. She serves as the Director of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory of Female Reproductive Cancer at JHU. She has been a leader or co-leader of government-funded program projects. Among them are two multi-institutional Consortium grants funded by DoD-CDMRP, focusing on ovarian cancer early diagnosis and disease prevention.
Dr. Wang received her PhD in Physiology at JHU, pursued a post-doctoral fellowship in Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, and took additional training in Cancer Genetics at the Howard Hughes Medical Institutions. She is interested in contributing her diverse training experiences and background to Break Through Cancer’s research and educational endeavors.
Victoria Gomerdinger, BS
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLabs: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
Victoria Gomerdinger is a PhD student in Paula Hammond’s lab in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. She is engineering layer-by-layer nanoparticles to target ovarian cancer and immune cells for the delivery of potent therapeutics. Victoria graduated with a BS in Chemical Engineering from Yale University.
PROJECT SUMMARY
A key factor underlying poor ovarian cancer cure rates is the ability of cancer cells resistant to chemotherapy to persist after frontline therapy. This persistent minimal residual disease (MRD) is clinically undetectable and represents “the seed” that eventually manifests as cancer recurrence. Over the last four decades, the main approach to slow the recurrence of ovarian cancer has been to place patients on one-size-fits-all “maintenance” therapies, as opposed to focusing specifically on unique vulnerabilities of the remaining cancer cells. Developing more effective therapies requires overcoming critical knowledge gaps regarding the biology of MRD.
The goal of this project is to transform the care of women with ovarian cancer by developing unprecedented capabilities for understanding and targeting MRD. Specifically, the team will take two complementary approaches. First, they will examine the limits of detection of blood-biopsy approaches to detect minute levels of residual cancer DNA in the blood after surgery is complete. Second, they will leverage “second-look laparoscopies,” surgical procedures in which latent MRD cells can be harvested and subjected to single-cell and spatial analysis to probe their evolutionary trajectories and states. These investigations will also be used to uncover novel immune and targeted therapies specific to the MRD phase of ovarian cancer. These putative targets will be tested and prioritized in mouse models, incorporating the use of novel therapeutic approaches such as nanoparticle delivery.
The multi-institutional team will also have a major clinical component. The team will partner with several drug companies developing new therapeutics, such as CDK and PARP inhibitors, which are thought to be efficacious in ovarian cancer patient populations with tumors harboring specific molecular features. Rather than performing these clinical studies with standard clinical endpoints, the team intends to treat and use MRD analyses to also determine efficacy. This approach aims to develop MRD as a “surrogate endpoint” for the accelerated evaluation of ovarian cancer drugs. If successful, this approach could have major implications for speeding up drug approval in this devastating disease. Finally, the team will also grow and treat organoid cultures in the laboratory from these clinical investigations. These three-dimensional laboratory cultures may hold potential to predict which patients will and will not respond, and this project aims to further demonstrate the power of this emerging technological approach for this disease.
Pursuing these questions in the setting of a single, multi-disciplinary Break Through Cancer team-based effort creates a fertile ecosystem for nurturing new ideas and new technologies to rapidly move laboratory insights to clinical trials.
MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Break Through Cancer was created in February 2021 with an extraordinary matching gift of $250,000,000. Every gift to the Foundation supports groundbreaking cancer research and helps us to meet our matching commitment.
For questions about giving please email Lisa Schwarz, Chief Philanthropy Officer at LMS@BreakThroughCancer.org