Individual Investigator Award
From 1998 – 2007, OCRF offered Individual Investigator Awards to advance outstanding early career researchers whose projects focused on early detection, screening, and basic translational research. These $100,000 grants were intended to yield results within two years or less. The ultimate aim of the program was to enable investigators, with promising results in hand, to obtain grants from the National Cancer Institute or other large funding agencies.
2007 Grant Recipients
- Qin Yang, MD, PhD, University of Washington BRCA/AKT1 Pathway in Ovarian Cancer
- Tian-Li Wang, PhD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine How One Biological Pathway Running Amok in Ovarian Cells Contributes to Cancer
- John Risinger, PhD, Michigan State University Understanding the Genetics of Metastasis May Help Prevent and Stop It
- David MacLaughlin, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital Validation of a Human Ovarian Cancer Stem Cell Signature and its Use to Select Optimal Therapeutic Strategies for Ovarian Cancer Patients
- Mitchell Ho, PhD , National Cancer Institute A New Treatment that Aims to Stop Metastasis
2005 Grant Recipients
- Min Zhu, PhD, UCLA School of Medicine A Protein’s Possible Role in Ovarian Cancer Metastasis
- Xiaochun Yu, MD, PhD, University of Michigan How Hereditary and Non-Hereditary Cancer May Have Something in Common
- Terry A. Van Dyke, PhD, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill Developing a Mouse Model of Ovarian Cancer
- Jill K. Slack-Davis, PhD, University of Virginia - Charlottesville How Ovarian Cancer Cells Might Metastasize
- Manish S. Patankar, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School A Possible Explanation for How Ovarian Cells Evade Immune Response
- Lawrence Kane, PhD, University of Pittsburgh Characterizing Molecular Defects in Ovarian Cancer
- Xiaolong He, PhD, University of Chicago One Cause of Ovarian Cancer May Lay in Problems with mRNA
- Laurent Brard, MD, PhD, Brown University Removing Iron from Ovarian Cancer Cells May Stop Their Growth
2004 Grant Recipients
- Anda Vlad, MD, PhD, University of Pittsburgh Immunotherapy of Ovarian Cancer Using Certain Tumor Specific Glycopeptides
- Chris Taylor, PhD, Georgetown University DNA Vaccines in Ovarian Cancer
- Elizabeth Swisher, MD, University of Washington Understanding the Role of Tumor Blood Vessel Growth and Circulating Tumor DNA in Women with Ovarian Cancer
- Richard Pietras, MD, PhD, UCLA School of Medicine Developing Drugs to Block Blood Vessel Growth in Ovarian Tumors
- Wael El Shamy, PhD, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Another Protein Made by BRCA1 and its Role in Ovarian Cancer
- Shu-Wing Ng, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital Studying Membrane Proteins for Early Diagnosis and Disease Progression in Ovarian Cancer
2003 Grant Recipients
- Changping Zou, MD, PhD, University of Arizona Finding Biomarkers for Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer
- Karen M. Vasquez, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center Trying to Understand the Mechanism for Cisplatin
- Parameshwar Mahareshti, DVM, University of Alabama - Birmingham A New Combination Drug Treatment for Ovarian Cancer
- Robert Lucito, PhD, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Gene Copy Number Alterations in Ovarian Cancer
- Thomas Franke, MD, PhD, Columbia University Medical Center Finding Molecules to Stop an Abnormal Signaling Pathway in Ovarian Cancer
- Ronny I. Drapkin, MD, PhD, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Ovarian Cancer Biomarkers: Identification, Validation and Assessment of Biological Function
2002 Grant Recipients
- Honami Naora, MD, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center How Cells Migrate in the Drosophila Ovary May Lead to a Better Understanding of Ovarian Cancer Metastasis
- Robert Hickey, PhD, Indiana University School of Medicine Mechanisms of Gene Instability in Ovarian Cancer
- Andrew K. Godwin, PhD, Fox Chase Cancer Center Identification of Novel Genetic Markers of Response to Imatinib Mesylate in Ovarian Carcinomas
- Xiang-Jun Fang, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center The Role of a Lipid Molecule in Promoting Ovarian Cancer Tumor Growth
- Fergus Couch, PhD, Mayo Clinic Finding Genes Associated with Drug Resistance in Ovarian Cancer
- Penny Clarke, PhD, University of Colorado - Boulder Sensitization of Human Ovarian Cells to a Protein that Causes Cell Death
2001 Grant Recipients
- Jingwei Yu, PhD, Eleanor Roosevelt Institute Development of DNA Methylation Based Ovarian Cancer Specific Molecular Markers
- Bin Ye, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Finding Serum and Urine Protein/Peptide Markers of Ovarian Cancer for Screening
- Elizabeth Ann Poynor, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center The Role of a Novel Gene, ZIC 2, in Causing Sporadic Ovarian Cancer
- Steven W. Johnson, PhD, University of Pennsylvania Characterizing Differential Gene Expression of Drug Sensitive and Resistant Ovarian Cancer
- Paul Cairns, PhD, Fox Chase Cancer Center Novel Approaches for Early Diagnosis of Ovarian Cancer
2000 Grant Recipients
- Gary Yiu, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Molecular Classification of Epithelial Ovarian Tumors
- Xiang-Xi Xu, PhD, Fox Chase Cancer Center Studying the Role of a Novel Protein, Dab2, in Ovarian Cancer
- Iman Osman, MD, University of New Mexico Hypoxia Inducible Factor-1 alpha (HIF-1): A Potential New Prognostic Marker for Advanced Ovarian Cancer and Target of Treatment
- William Irvin, MD, University of Virginia Medical Center Vaccine Trial for Ovarian Cancer
- Wei Hu, MD, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center Effects of a Novel Combination Drug Treatment on Cell Lines Derived from Human Ovarian Cancer
1999 Grant Recipients
- Jon Wiener, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center Studying the Role of the Protein Src in Ovarian Cancer
- Farr Nezhat, MD, Mount Sinai School of Medicine Comparative Immunohistochemical and in Situ DNA Hybridization Studies of Endometriosis and Ovarian Cancer
- Dineo Khabele, MD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center Patterns of Gene Expression in Ovarian Cancer
- Abbie Fields, MD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center Comparing Hereditary Cancer of the Peritoneum to Hereditary Ovarian Cancer
- Setsuko Chambers, MD, Yale University Androgens and the Emergence of the Ovarian Cancer Phenotype
1998 Grant Recipients
- Yosef Yarden, PhD, The Weizmann Institute of Science The ErbB Signaling Network-Potential Targets for Prognosis and Therapy of Ovarian Cancer
- Timothy Lane, PhD, UCLA School of Medicine Tumor Gene Overexpression: A Functional Assay to Identify New Tumor Suppressor Genes
- Barry Kacinski, MD, PhD, Yale University Steroid Hormone Regulation of the Expression of Genes
- Ilana Cass, MD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center Comparing Peritoneal and Ovarian Cancer
- Molly Brewer, DVM, MD, MS, MD Anderson Cancer Center How Might Chemopreventive Agents Against Ovarian Cancer Work