Meet the researchers and past grantees

Dr. Jake Stein is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a medical oncologist with a clinical focus on caring for patients with sarcomas. He is a health services researcher who cites equity as one of his principle core values. Dr. Stein earned his undergraduate degree from Emory University and his medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He did his residency at the University of Washington and his fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Stein was also a part of the LCI family as a Lung Cancer Initiative Research Fellow!

Dr. Yaddanapudi and her research team have made the discovery that a stem cell-based vaccine can prevent the development of lung cancer in mice. Researchers believe this vaccine targets special cells, called cancer-initiating stem cells, which are responsible for tumor growth and spread. With this grant, Dr. Yaddanapudi will further investigate how this vaccine works and evaluate its potential use in preventing lung cancer relapse, especially in patients with treatment-resistant lung cancers.

This grant was funded through our partnership with Free to Breathe’s Young Investigator Research Grant Program.

Assistant Professor, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive form of lung cancer that hasn’t seen significant changes to standard-of-care treatments in more than 20 years. With low SCLC survival rates, there’s an urgent, unmet need for new treatment options. In her previous research, Dr. Byers discovered that blocking a protein called PARP can help improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy for SCLC. But she has also found that tumors can learn how to adapt to PARP-blocking drugs. With this grant, Dr. Byers will examine how this resistance develops, and she’ll test new treatments that may help to overcome resistance to PARP-blocking drugs.

Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a condition in which the immune system responds to an outside irritant, causing inflammation in the airway. This inflammation is an unnatural state for the lungs to continue to experience, and leads to a higher risk of lung cancer for people with COPD. Dr. Zaynagetdinov’s research seeks to understand how certain immune system cells present in inflammation, myeloid cells, promote lung cancer. This project is also investigating how a specific protein complex, NF-kB, affects the formation of those immune cells. Ultimately, this research could lead to new methods for preventing lung cancer, particularly in people with COPD

Visiting Fellow, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health

The risk of developing lung cancer differs between individuals depending in part upon the genes they carry and their exposure to cancer-causing chemicals and agents.

Genetic variation of a region on chromosome 6 appears to result in a greater risk of developing lung cancer regardless of a person’s smoking history. By determining the sequence of DNA in the region, Dr. Simpson may be able to find the specific mutations responsible for this increased risk. In addition, Dr. Simpson will continue to look for genes in other regions of the genome that may also affect lung cancer risk. Identification of gene markers indicating higher risk of lung cancer may ultimately improve early detection of the disease. Dr. Simpson’s research is supported by the North Carolina Lung Cancer Partnership.

Assistant Professor, Duke University Medical Center

Dr. Onaitis is seeking to better understand the complexity of lung cancer tumors by characterizing tumor-initiating cells and how they respond to certain molecular signals. He will investigate how the type and location of a tumor-initiating cell contributes to the aggressiveness of the cancer. A better understanding of the different types of cells within a tumor and how those cells are affected by cell signals could help develop more effective targeted therapies. This grant is also supported by the LUNGevity Foundation.