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Cancer prevention and early detection stories from AGDQ
5 years after testicular cancer diagnosis, AGDQ’s Keizaron is cancer-free
My fight for future generations: Colorectal cancer and family history
Meet Alicia: Singer, five-time GDQ participant and health advocate
Meet your 2023 AGDQ Research Grant and Fellowship Awardees
My “Why”
My training in human nutrition has always made a point of focusing on prevention in addition to supporting treatment. The recent identification of clonal hematopoiesis as a condition that can assign cancer development risk in otherwise healthy people provided me a promising avenue to apply my nutritional science background to cancer prevention.
My Mission
The past successes of nutritional interventions in preventing disease such as the fortification of flour products with folic acid to prevent neural tube defects is remarkable and inspiring. As our understanding of how specific cancers initiate, it evolves the opportunity to develop prophylactic nutritional interventions and becomes excitingly more plausible.
Research Overview
Aging is a major risk factor for the development of blood cancer, such as leukemia, due to an increase in the dominance of ineffective blood stem cells. Blood stem cells are necessary for hematopoiesis. (The process of creating all the cells that constitute the blood system.)
Over 6% of all individuals 60 years of age and older who are otherwise free of blood disorders have clonal hematopoiesis. Clonal hematopoiesis is the dominance of ineffective blood stem cells that results in an increased propensity for blood cancer development and poor outcomes once cancer develops. This can be detected from a minimally invasive blood draw; therefore, it presents a truly pre-cancerous state that is easily detectable and in adequate time for intervention. Because the timeline from clonal hematopoiesis detection to disease is unknown, traditional therapies that have side effects, especially when taken for long periods— such as drugs—are not feasible.
I propose the use of dietary interventions as a sustainable and effective cancer preventative strategy to prophylactically treat people with clonal hematopoiesis. Using the zebrafish model—which shares many of the biological features that define the human blood system and allows for high throughput screening of treatments in a whole-body context—I will test dietary interventions to evaluate their influence on slowing clonal hematopoiesis.
I will also combine genome editing techniques to model clonal hematopoiesis along with cutting edge genetic and color cellular barcoding approaches to track the dynamics of individual blood stem cells in response to dietary interventions in real time.
Why Funding Matters
Funding gives me the financial freedom to focus on my cancer prevention research full time in a mentored setting. During this valuable time, I will develop into an independent cancer prevention scientist prepared to train the next generation.
My Hope
The goal of my work is to develop nutrition-based preventive treatments to be used after an individual is found to have a genetic predictor of cancer. The appeal of nutrition-based interventions is that they typically have less side-effects than traditional drugs and can be safely taken for long durations.
My “Why”
As a physician scientist, I conduct research to understand how leukemias develop from pre-leukemic precursor conditions to develop better preventive interventions. My interest in cancer research stems from my experience in medical school, closely working with blood cancer patients and my mother’s breast cancer diagnosis. I moved to the U.S. to receive training in a cancer research lab and developed myself as a physician scientist. I feel fulfilled when I develop new therapies in the lab and work hard to translate them into clinical studies in the hopes of improving the care of our future patients.
My Mission
Acute leukemia is an aggressive cancer with significant morbidity and mortality rates. Most patients are transfusion dependent, requiring visits to hospital at least once a week. While our current therapies can cure a fraction of these patients, most patients have high-risk leukemias that can be fatal. In the past 10 years, we have learned a great deal about the pre-leukemic precursor conditions in the blood system which can be detected years before leukemia arises. The goal of my laboratory is to understand the mechanisms driving the progression of precursor lesions into leukemia and develop new approaches to halt this progression.
Research Overview
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are aggressive blood cancers that are among the top ten causes of cancer deaths in the U.S. Clonal hematopoiesis (CH) is a well-known precursor lesion to AML and is defined by the presence of genetic abnormalities (i.e., mutations) in the blood cells of an individual, years before they get a clinical diagnosis of blood cancer. Individuals with CH are at 11-times higher risk to develop AML.
Our research has shown that a third of adult patients with ALL also harbor CH-type mutations in their leukemias. We were also able to demonstrate that mutations can exist in blood cells of ALL patients many years before they are diagnosed with leukemia. Since CH can predict the risk of leukemia for both AML and ALL patients, we may have a window of opportunity to implement risk-reduction strategies in high-risk individuals to halt the progression of CH to fatal acute leukemias.
The aim of this project is to have a detailed genetic characterization of CH evolution to help understand the critical pathways driving leukemias, which can then be targeted to prevent leukemia before it happens.
We will explore:
- Mechanisms by which CH causes ALL by using a sophisticated single cell sequencing technology.
- Patterns of evolution of CH in solid tumor patients who are receiving chemotherapy or immunotherapy for their cancer, which can help us predict the risk for therapy-related leukemias.
- Expansion of our CH clinic`s efforts to enroll more high-risk patients in prevention clinical trials.
These studies will help us discover the pathways driving leukemias in adults. This will allow us to use risk reduction strategies to prevent leukemia in high-risk patients.
Why Funding Matters
Mechanisms responsible for development of leukemias from precursor lesions, characterized by blood count abnormalities, are currently unknown. Funding from the Prevent Cancer Foundation will allow us to discover the unknown as we perform a large-scale genomic analysis of samples to identify drivers of leukemia progression.
My Hope
Our goal is to identify new biomarkers and mechanisms responsible for leukemic transformation so that we can develop better models of risk assessment and discover new therapies that focus on prevention through precision medicine. We hope to bring new insights into leukemia prevention and inform physicians taking care of patients who are at high risk for leukemias.
My “Why”
Hispanics/Latinos are disproportionately burdened by cancer. Cancer is among the top two leading causes of death in the U.S. Latino population, accounting for about 2 out of 5 deaths. This population has lower cancer screening rates than any other race or ethnicity. This disparity is exacerbated with a lower overall health care utilization among Hispanics/Latinos. There is an urgent need to address this modifiable factor of low screening rates among this population and reduce cancer-related mortality.
My Mission
My immediate goal is to identify strategies that will help this target population increase cancer knowledge and screenings. My long-term goal is to make an impact in this community by reducing early mortality rates from cancer. I have conducted several qualitative studies and observed that a large part of this community is disconnected from the U.S. health care system; therefore, they do not use many of the resources available to them.
Research Overview
Hispanics/Latinos are disproportionately burdened by cancer and experience structural racism (macro-level conditions that restrict opportunities and resources) as a barrier to cancer prevention and screening.
We want to adapt the successful Project HEAL (Health through Early Awareness and Learning) program for the immigrant Hispanic/Latino community. Project HEAL is an evidence-based intervention in African American faith-based organizations that we developed with support from the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society. The program trained African American leaders as lay Community Health Advisors (CHAs) to conduct group educational workshops in churches to increase knowledge and screening for breast, prostate and colorectal cancers. It was effective in increasing cancer knowledge overall, as well as colonoscopy, fecal occult blood test and digital rectal exams over 24 months in Black communities.
This project will measure the effectiveness of Project HEAL to increase cancer knowledge and screenings with Hispanic/Latino immigrants. There is a critical need to adapt and determine the effects of Project HEAL on cancer knowledge and screening outcomes among this population.
Why Funding Matters
With the Prevent Cancer Foundation’s funding, we will culturally adapt and implement Project HEAL with Hispanic/Latino immigrants with the goal to address low screening rates among this population and reduce cancer-related mortality. This project will pilot test the effectiveness among this population and will be followed by a larger trial with a larger number of participants.
My Hope
My hope is that we will observe an increase in cancer knowledge and use of cancer screenings during the pilot test. I hope our evaluation indicates that the intervention is feasible and has efficacy, utility and impact. I hope results from this project will allow for the proposal of a larger trial to achieve a higher impact in a larger population of immigrant Hispanics/Latinos.
Learn more about these and other innovative research projects.
Meet your 2024 Global Cancer Prevention Grant Recipients
made possible by AGDQ
Organization: Basic Health International
Title: Evaluating an HPV Tandem Test for Cervical Cancer Screening and Genotyping Triage
Project Location: Mexico
Award: $95,000 for one year
Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer mortality among women in Mexico. This project will develop and implement a training curriculum for low-cost, self-collected human papillomavirus (HPV) sampling and will provide treatment for those at high risk in an under-screened population. The successful completion of this project will provide a streamlined cervical cancer prevention strategy that minimizes overtreatment and loss to follow-up.
Organization: Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services
Title: From Mother-Daughter to Mother-Child Approach: A Strategy for Scaling Up HPV Vaccination in Cameroon
Project Location: Cameroon
Award: $95,000 for one year
This project will address cervical cancer in three urban, medically underserved neighborhoods in Cameroon by screening women ages 30 and over for cervical cancer and vaccinating their children against HPV. Expanding on a prior Foundation-funded project focused on mothers and daughters, this program will vaccinate both girls and boys against HPV, with the goal of preventing more HPV-related cancers. If successful, the mother-child model has the potential to be replicated in other countries where HPV vaccination hesitancy and misinformation are major concerns.
Organization: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Title: Artificial Intelligence Decision Support for Timely Breast Cancer Diagnosis in Nigeria
Project Location: Nigeria
Award: $95,000 for one year
Compared to forty years ago, Nigeria has experienced a threefold increase in breast cancer incidence. This project will train Nigerian radiologists to use a tablet-based mobile breast ultrasound with AI support for timely diagnosis of breast cancer, to bridge the gap of limited diagnostic imaging in the country. AI accuracy will be assessed to determine its future use for breast cancer diagnosis in low-resource communities worldwide.
Organization: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Title: A Collaborative Breast Radiology Training Model for Early Breast Cancer Detection in Zambia
Project Location: Zambia
Award: $95,000 for one year
There are no formally trained breast radiologists in Zambia, and two-thirds of breast cancer diagnoses in the country occur at late stages, when treatment may be less effective. This project aims to improve breast cancer detection and survival in Zambia by using a novel international collaborative training model to train the country’s first specialized breast radiologists.
Learn more about the Foundation’s Global Grants Program.
The Prevent Cancer Foundation funds important research and outreach work around the world
Note: Grant recipients based in the U.S. are not shown on the map
visit the Research Grants and Community Grants pages to learn more.
