2015 Early Career Investigator Grant Recipient — Sarah Adams, MD
Project Summary
Women with ovarian cancers that result from an inherited mutation in the BRCA gene show excellent response to a drug called a PARP inhibitor. The drug specifically kills cancer cells but spares normal cells because it targets a vulnerability caused by the gene mutation. Women with hereditary ovarian cancer also have immune cells that are more able to attack the tumor, improving their survival compared to women with non-hereditary disease. Women with inherited ovarian cancer, therefore, might benefit from treatments that enhance immune response to cancer cells. In her study, Dr. Adams will combine a PARP inhibitor and a drug that increases immune cells’ ability to kill tumor cells, called anti-CTLA4 antibody, with the expectation that both should have a powerful therapeutic effect. Because women with non-hereditary ovarian cancers also develop defects in BRCA function, results of this study may also be applicable to non-hereditary ovarian cancer patients, too.
Bio
Sarah Adams, MD, Professor and Fellowship Research Mentor, and OCRA's Scientific Advisor, graduated from University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine where she also completed her OB-GYN residency. She completed her GO fellowship at University of Pennsylvania Hospital in 2009 and stayed on as faculty at Penn with a research appointment in the Ovarian Cancer Research Center. Dr. Adams joined the UNM GO division in 2012 where she maintains active clinical practice and leads a translational research lab focused on ovarian cancer immunology. She is the Co-leader of the Cancer Therapeutics Research Program for the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center P30 grant and the Associate Director of the Translational Science for the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is nationally recognized for her work in immunology of ovarian cancer and novel immuno-oncology clinical trials.