Six Harvard Medical School postdoctoral researchers have received awards from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.
Four of the HMS researchers are among six nationwide to receive a Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists. This award provides additional funding to scientists completing a Damon Runyon Fellowship Award and who have exceeded Damon Runyon’s highest expectations and are most likely to make paradigm-shifting advances that transform the way cancer is prevented, diagnosed and treated.
Two of the HMS researchers are among 16 to be named as new Damon Runyon Fellows. The Damon Runyon Fellowship Award encourages promising young scientists to pursue careers in cancer research by providing them with independent funding over four years to work on basic and translational cancer research projects in the laboratories of leading senior investigators.
The 2020 recipients of the Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists from HMS are:
Ivana Gasic, HMS research fellow in systems biology (Damon Runyon Merck Fellow 2016-2020)
Gasic is investigating the fundamental principles of tubulin autoregulation and the microtubule integrity response, a mechanism that detects and responds to changes in the microtubule cytoskeleton in interphase cells. Microtubules are frequent chemotherapy targets when treating various cancers such as leukemia, lymphomas, melanomas and lung, ovarian and breast cancers. Microtubule-targeting chemotherapeutics kill cancer cells by blocking cell division and inhibiting cell growth. Gasic’s work reveals how the microtubule-targeting drugs may work independently of cell cycle and suggests potential new pathways to specifically target cancer cells.
