The 2009 winners of the National Lung Cancer Partnership/LUNGevity Foundation Research Grants are Prasad Adusumilli, M.D. and Lee Goodglick, Ph.D. The $100,000 grants will fund the scientist's research on visceral pleural invasion and the role of estrogen in lung cancer tumors, respectively.

Dr. Adusumilli, a general thoracic surgeon specializing in lung cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, was awarded the grant focused on basic research for his proposed study of Visceral Pleural Invasion, a condition that affects one in four early stage lung cancer patients in which their cancer spreads to the membrane covering the lungs surface and is associated with poorer treatment outcomes.

Using a mouse model, Dr. Adusumilli's will use genetic engineering to program immune cells to target and suppress tumor cells on the lung membrane.

Dr. Goodglick of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles was awarded the grant for research in the area of sex differences in lung cancer. His research will focus on estrogen, which many lung cancers either make or are responsive to, similarly to breast cancer. Aromatase-inhibitors, drugs which turn off the enzyme aromatase which can cause some cancers to grow and have long been used in breast cancer treatment, will be studied in a pre-clinical trial to determine their effectiveness in treating lung cancer. Additional research will use new technology to address other ways that estrogen may affect lung cancer in order to identify future therapies.

"Only by continuing to fund this type of lung cancer research can we keep the momentum towards better treatments for patients," Dr. Joan Schiller, president of the National Lung Cancer Partnership and chief of hematology/oncology of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center said. "Supporting the work of scientists like Drs. Adusumilli and Goodglick is critical to our continued battle against the world's number 1 cancer killer."



National Lung Cancer Partnership is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to decreasing deaths due to lung cancer, and helping patients live longer and better, through research, awareness and advocacy.

The LUNGevity Foundation is the only organization in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to funding lung cancer research. The 501(c) (3) organization was founded in 2000 by seven Chicago-area lung cancer survivors to increase funding for lung cancer research.

Source: Colleen O'Donnell
National Lung Cancer Partnership