Funding Breakthrough Research into Pancreatic Cancer
The Lustgarten Foundation’s Research Investigator Program funds talented scientists with historical accomplishments in cancer research to focus on pancreatic cancer. Scientists receive three-year grants for projects investigating the science underlying pancreatic cancer to achieve early diagnosis and improved therapies. This funding encourages exploratory research on new findings that might have practical application to patients and accelerates results faster than other funding mechanisms.
Meet the Researchers
Dr. Feinberg is the director of the Center for Epigenetics, chief of the Division of Molecular Medicine in the Department of Medicine, and the King Fahd Professor of Medicine, Oncology, Molecular Biology & Genetics in the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He discovered epigenetic alterations in human cancer with Dr. Bert Vogelstein, and is also credited with the discovery of gene imprinting in humans.
Dr. Hunter is a Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of California San Diego. He is one of the foremost leaders in the field of cell growth control, growth factor receptors and their signal transduction pathways. Dr. Hunter is known for his discovery of a mechanism called tyrosine phosphorylation, which is a molecular switch that turns normal cells cancerous.
Dr. Jaffee is an international leader in the development of immune-based therapies for pancreatic and breast cancers. She is deputy director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins; associate director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Johns Hopkins; professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and associate director for translational research. Dr. Jaffee is the Lustgarten Foundation’s Chief Medical Advisor and leader of the Translational Advisory Group.
Dr. Pellman is the Margaret M. Dyson Professor of Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. In 2008, he was appointed as an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His laboratory works to understand normal cell division mechanisms and to discover cell division defects that are unique to cancer cells.
Dr. Ploegh is a renowned immunologist at Children’s Hospital in Boston and is known for his contributions in understanding antigen processing and the evasion of the immune system by viruses. The Ploegh lab studies molecular aspects of immune recognition, using chemical, cell biological and biochemical approaches, complemented by appropriate in vivo models.
Dr. Vander Heiden is the director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, a professor in the department of biology and a member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. He is a practicing oncologist and instructor in medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School. His work has been recognized with many awards including the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Sciences, the AACR Gertrude B. Elion Award, the HHMI Faculty Scholar Award, and the Stand Up To Cancer Phillip A. Sharp Innovation in Collaboration Award.