Dr. Martin Cannon, of University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), is a 2021 recipient of OCRA’s Collaborative Research Development Grant. With his project, “Understanding and Targeting Myeloid Populations in Ovarian Cancer,” Dr. Cannon seeks to better understand the behavior of a type of immune cell that currently helps ovarian cancer tumors grow, in order … Continued
Dr. Benoît Brangantini, of Mayo Clinic, is a 2021 recipient of OCRA’s Mentored Investigator Grant. With his project, “Probing Homologous Recombination DNA Repair Factors in Chromatin by cryo-EM,” Dr. Bragantini aims to better understand how DNA damage and repair mechanisms can lead to ovarian cancer, and how these processes can be controlled to prevent ovarian … Continued
Dr. Melanie Weigert, of University of Chicago, is a 2021 recipient of OCRA’s Mentored Investigator Grant. With her project, “Genome-Wide Profiling of 5-hydroxymethylcytosine on Cell-Free DNA,” Dr. Weigert aims to identify biomarkers that can predict how cancer cells will respond to platinum-based treatments, helping guide patients with potentially platinum-resistant cancer toward alternative therapies. Dr. Weigert’s … Continued
Dr. Anne van Harten, of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, is a 2021 recipient of OCRA’s Ann and Sol Schreiber Mentored Investigator Award. With her project, “Targeted MDM2 Degradation as a Novel Treatment for Ovarian Cancer,” Dr. van Harten is designing and testing a new compound to target a … Continued
Dr. Sammy Ferri-Borgogno, of UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, is a 2021 recipient of OCRA’s Ann and Sol Schreiber Mentored Investigator Award. With her project, “Spatially-Resolved Cellular and Transcriptome Analyses of Ovarian Cancer,” Dr. Ferri-Borgogno is working to better understand ovarian cancer microenvironments, to find ways to better combat drug resistance. What initially sparked your … Continued
Dr. Arun Kanakkanthara, of Mayo Clinic, is a 2021 recipient of OCRA’s Liz Tilberis Early Career Award. With his project, “Exploiting a Metabolic Dependency of PARPinhibitor-Resistant Ovarian Cancer,” Dr. Kanakkanthara is investigating ways to overcome tumor resistance to PARP inhibitors, a critical issue in ovarian cancer treatment. What initially sparked your interest in science? Science … Continued
Dr. Wei Zhou, of The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, is a 2021 recipient of OCRA’s Ann & Sol Schreiber Mentored Investigator Award, mentored by Dr. Rugang Zhang. With his project, “Targeting the Mevalonate Pathway in ARID1A-Mutated Ovarian Cancer,” Dr. Zhou is investigating ARID1A mutations, in search of better therapeutic options for patients with ovarian clear … Continued
Dr. Liya Ding, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is a 2021 recipient of OCRA’s Liz Tilberis Early Career Award. With her project, “Targeting Therapeutic Resistance to PARP Inhibition in Ovarian Cancer,” Dr. Ding is focusing on PARP inhibitors — some of the most effective drug therapies available for ovarian cancer, but that often come with a … Continued
Dr. Bojana Stefanovska, at University of Minnesota Twin Cities, is a 2021 recipient of OCRA’s Ann and Sol Schreiber Mentored Investigator Award. Her project, “APOBEC3B and DNA Repair as Synthetic Lethal Combinations in CCOC,” explores DNA repair as a potential treatment avenue for clear cell ovarian carcinoma (CCOC). What initially sparked your interest in science? … Continued
Sridevi Challa, PhD, an OCRA grantee at UT Southwestern, is on the receiving end of some major accolades. She is the lead author of a study that dozens of news outlets are describing as having found the “Achilles’ Heel” of ovarian cancer cells. This opens the door for new research in biomarkers and the development … Continued
“It’s kind of like how the Apollo mission to the moon gave us Velcro.” Dr. David Chapel and his team are laying new groundwork in better understanding the origins of high-grade serous carcinoma, even if the exact applications are hard to see this early on. David, an OCRA grantee, speaks with great passion when he … Continued
Imagine, if you will, a scene from yesteryear: rows of telephone operators sitting in front of giant switchboards, lights blinking on and off in seemingly random patterns, hands working quickly to plug and unplug wires in order to foster connections. If you can picture that, you can begin to get a sense of the impact … Continued
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