Issue 4 | June, 2023

Welcome to another issue of the Legorreta Cancer Center at Brown University Newsletter.  Read on for the latest news about cancer research, education and training, community outreach, and more. 

Spotlight 

Ukrainian Researchers Join Center

The Legorreta Cancer Center is pleased to welcome two visiting faculty from Ukraine: Dinara Ryspayeva, MD, and Nataliia Verovkina, MD, PhD. Dinara and Nataliia join us as inaugural Legorreta Cancer Center Scholars for a one-year research exchange funded through the Legorreta gift, the Office of the Provost, and The Division of Biology and Medicine. 

Verovkina is a medical oncologist and a research fellow at Ukraine’s National Cancer Institute. She came to Providence in March from Kiev, where she had remained caring for patients that were not able to evacuate from the war. Under air raids and with scarcity of resources, Verovkina was able to share her experience in a series of articles published in The Cancer Letter. 

Before the conflict, Ryspayeva was a medical oncologist in LISOD - Israeli Oncological Hospital, just outside of Kiev. She evacuated from Kiev with her daughter when the war started in 2022 and spent almost a year in a refugee camp in Denmark before coming to Providence.

Legorreta Cancer Center Director Wafik El-Deiry, MD, PhD, brought the two researchers to Brown after learning about them from a Ukrainian colleague in the US. El-Deiry gathered support and resources in order to help Ryspayeva and Verovkina continue their research careers and provide them with experiences that will help them rebuild scientific study when they are able to return to Ukraine.  

Verovkina and Ryspayeva say that having each other gives them great comfort and shared camaraderie: someone who understands where they came from and what they left behind, how different the daily life is in Ukraine right now and here across the ocean. They also enjoy being able to share their knowledge and work experience with new colleagues here, to focus on the research, and continue to work for the good of people, even during the war. 

In the lab, both are pursuing novel therapeutics research and addressing drug toxicities through collaboration with the El-Deiry group.

Research News

COVID-19 Cancer Consortium

Brown University hosted the third annual COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium (#CCC19) Retreat on March 31. In addition to seeing patients at Lifespan Cancer Institute, Legorreta Cancer Center member Jeremy Warner, MD, MS, also serves as the director of the CCC19 Research Coordinating Center. CCC19 consists of more than 120 cancer centers and other organizations that have come together to study those with cancer who are diagnosed with COVID. 

Pilot Project Research Grants

Congratulations to the cancer center members who received Pathology and Laboratory Medicine 2023 Pilot Project Research Grants:

• Adina Badea and Daniel Spade - A look into environmental reproductive toxicology: robust quantification of steroid hormones, cholesterol, and arachidonic acid levels in phthalate-exposed rat fetal testes

• Shaolei Lu and Yun-An Tseng - Characterization of basal-like pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

• Ece Uzun and Joyce Ou - Stratification of ovarian cancer subgroups using network biology approach

Clinical Trial Results 

Ashley Stuckey, Cara Mathews, and Paul DiSilvestro presented the results of two clinical trials that define the new standard of care for women with advanced stage or recurrent endometrial cancer at the recent Society of Gynecologic Oncology Annual Meeting. 

National Leadership 

• Sheldon Holder was named vice chair for the June 2023 Clinical Studies and Clinical Trials (CSCT) Peer Review Committee at the American Cancer Society.

• Michelle Dawson was nominated for membership in the Cancer Cell Biology study section at the NIH.

• Jeremy Warner was named editor-in-chief of JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics.

In brief

Community

LCC Scientist Named ASCO Advocacy Champion

The Association for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) named Jeremy Warner, MD, MS, as an Advocacy Champion during the 2023 ASCO Advocacy Summit in May. Advocacy Champions are ASCO volunteers who have made meaningful contributions to the association’s advocacy activities throughout the year to ensure that every patient with cancer has access to high-quality, equitable cancer care no matter who they are or where they live. Advocates speak with federal lawmakers and agencies, send personalized letters to members of Congress through ASCO’s ACT Network, engage with state lawmakers on policy priorities at the state level, and host site visits for lawmakers in their home states and districts.

For more news, advocacy, and analysis on cancer policy, visit the ASCO website.

Fundraising

In the News