Research Funded in 2011

A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation donated $110,000 of the $200,000 funded by LUNGevity Foundation for the following study:

LUNGevity Foundation/A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation Research Grant: $200,000 Award Period: July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012.
Recipient: John V Heymach, M.D.,Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Study: ” Predictive blood-based markers of response to VEGF inhibitors in NSCLC”

Research Funded in 2010

A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation donated $100,000 ( 10% of the total cost of the studies) which was matched by LUNGevity for the following studies.

Protect Your Lungs/ LUNGevity Foundation Research Grant
Grant: $400,000
Award Period: July 1, 2010 – June 30, 2012
Recipient: Steven M. Dubinett, MD, Chief, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine; Professor of Medicine and Pathology; Director, UCLA Lung Cancer Research Program; and Kostyantyn Krysan, Assistant Professor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Study: “Combined Protein and miRNA Profiles for the Early Detection of Lung Cancer“

This project seeks to develop non-invasive blood-based assays to complement imaging and other clinical information with the molecular data. We anticipate that the molecular data obtained in the proposed studies will aid in development of a sensitive and specific test for early stage lung cancer detection and will constitute a significant advancement in the field. Development of such a test will have a major impact by improving survival rates for lung cancer above the current dismal five-year survival of 15%, a level that has remained relatively constant for decades. The aims of this proposal are designed to develop a diagnostic panel of protein and micro-RNA (miRNA) biomarkers that can discriminate between benign or malignant pulmonary nodules. We propose to base this panel on our previously developed protein and miRNA panels that can discriminate between stage I non-small cell lung cancer patients and high-risk control subjects. We hypothesize that the addition of miRNA will increase the ability of this diagnostic test to distinguish between lung cancer and other pulmonary conditions.

Protect Your Lungs/ LUNGevity Foundation Research Grant
Grant: $600,000
Award Period: July 1, 2010 – June 30, 2012
Recipient: Samir Hanash, M.D., PhD., Program Head, Molecular Diagnostics; Gary Goodman, M.D., Senior Investigator; Christopher Li, M.D., Ph.D., Research Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Study: “Blood Tests for the Early Detection of Lung Cancer“

Improvements in outcomes for cervix cancer and bowel cancer provide support for the concept that early diagnosis has the greatest promise to improve cancer outcomes. Unfortunately our improved understanding of the molecular basis of lung cancer has not translated into effective means for early detection. There is at the present time a substantial need for simple but accurate non-invasive tests to detect lung cancer before it is advanced to the point that treatment is rendered ineffective. Blood based biomarker tests provide an ideal approach given that asymptomatic subjects have blood drawn at the time of routine check-ups. The public health impact of the development of effective blood based tests for the detection of lung cancer are quite substantial, given the millions of subjects who are at risk for lung cancer due to current smoking or due to a past history of smoking. Additionally there is a need to develop tests to identify subjects at risk for developing lung cancer who are never-smokers given that never smokers with lung cancer represent some 15% of cases and lung cancer among never smokers is number 7 on the top ten list of cancer killers. This two-year program of research builds on the identification of candidate markers for lung cancer by a team of three PI’s at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center with expertise in Thoracic Oncology, Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention, and Molecular Diagnostics. Our goals are to develop blood tests to 1- identify never smoker subjects at increased risk of developing lung cancer (C. Li, PI); 2- detect lung cancer before onset of symptoms (G. Goodman, PI); and 3- distinguish between benign and malignant lesions identified by CT scans (S. Hanash, PI). If successful this research program will result in a paradigm shift in our approach to lung cancer screening.