Two Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University School of Medicine researchers will co-lead a new grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health to identify mechanisms that contribute to cancer disparities in Detroit.
Kristen Purrington, Ph.D., member of the Population Studies and Disparities Research Program and associate professor of Oncology, and Heather Gibson, Ph.D., member of the Tumor Biology and Microenvironment Research Program and assistant professor of Oncology, are the principal investigators on “Disparities in Immuno-oncology Outcomes in Detroit (DIODE).”
The two-year, $704,282 award will support collaborative interactions and new project development between health disparities and immuno-oncology researchers across Karmanos and WSU. The grant has two parts, with Drs. Gibson and Purrington leading the research project. Dr. Gibson, along with Ann Schwartz, Ph.D., MPH, vice president and deputy director of Research and Academic Affairs at Karmanos, professor and associate chair of Oncology at the WSU School of Medicine, are co-principal investigators on the administrative core, which will oversee the research and planning components, centralizing and leveraging the existing administrative infrastructure of Karmanos.
“Black women with HER2+ breast cancer experience worse outcomes than White women after receiving the gold standard therapeutic antibody trastuzumab,” Dr. Gibson said. “Our hypothesis is that genetic ancestry influences whether the patient induces an anti-tumor immune response after trastuzumab, which then affects therapeutic efficacy.”
The project will extend studies in an animal model to evaluate if genetics in specific genome regions impact therapeutic outcomes with trastuzumab.
“The identification of genes and related biological pathways that regulate response to therapy may lead to novel co-therapeutic agents or biomarkers to inform clinical strategy and improve health equity. Additionally, funding from this mechanism will further develop our infrastructure to support future cancer disparities studies here at Wayne State and Karmanos,” Dr. Gibson said.
The research team will utilize HER2+ breast cancer samples from a diverse cohort of patients treated at Karmanos to conduct spatial biology analysis.
“These cutting-edge technologies allow us to look at the complex interactions between cancer cells and immune cells. Genetic analysis will be used to look for association between host genetics and the response to trastuzumab and the immune composition within the tumor,” Dr. Gibson said.
The project number for this National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health P20 award is CA290450.
Originally published at Today@Wayne.