Recent Funding

Research funding reached $12 million dollars in fiscal year 2019, of which greater than $8 million are from Federal dollars.  Several of our investigators received new grants as outlined below. 

Mark Rubinstein, Ph.D. Receives $1.98M NIH Funding to Expand Immunotherapy Research for Lung Cancer

Last year, Lancet Oncology published an article on the first in-human report of the combination of two novel classes of immune drugs for the treatment of cancer by Drs. Mark Rubinstein and John Wrangle. Their phase Ib study results indicate that these two drugs can be used safely together. Although the study was not designed to assess efficacy, encouraging data suggest that the combination could provide clinical benefit to non-small cell lung cancer patients that had become resistant to approved immunotherapies.

Drs. Rubinstein and Wrangle recently received R01 funding of over $1.9 M from the NIH to conduct a more in-depth analysis of the patient samples to understand better why the therapy may be working and which patients are most likely to respond. According to Rubinstein, this grant funding will help the researchers design more effective treatments in the future.

Jean Marie Ruddy, M.D. Receives Prestigious Awards from the NIH and the SVS 

Jean Marie Ruddy, M.D. was awarded a five year $882,360 NIH/NHBLI Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award, (K08). Dr. Ruddy was also chosen as the recipient of the 2019 SVS Foundation/American College of Surgeons Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award from the Society of Vascular Surgery (SVS) Foundation, the SVS Research & Education Committee and the American College of Surgeons Scholarships Committee. The SVS supplemental award provides additional salary support of $50,000 per year for five years, totaling $250,000.

These awards will give the vascular surgeon more time in the laboratory to investigate how signaling through the serum and glucocorticoid inducible kinase-1 (SGK-1) can promote development and progression of an aSatish Nadig, M.D., Ph.D. Receives $1.87M Fundingbdominal aortic aneurysm. Identifying a key role for this protein will establish it as a target for pharmacotherapeutic engineering of medications to inhibit aneurysm growth. 

Satish Nadig, M.D., Ph.D. Receives $1.87M Funding

Satish Nadig, M.D., Ph.D.  was awarded a five year $1,868,750 NIH/NIAID Research Project Grant (R01)   to investigate novel strategies to reprogram endothelial cell mitochondria such that they provide protection from immune-mediated injuries post-transplantation.

Transplantation is an established therapy for patients suffering from end-stage organ failure. Despite improvements in immunosuppressive therapies, long-term graft survival remains poor, and thus, new therapeutic strategies are urgently needed to improve outcomes. 

Dr. Nadig’s research will, for the first time, explore the mechanistic relationship between the mitochondrial morphology and immunometabolism of endothelial cells and their immunogenicity in the setting of transplantation.

Mahsa Javid, M.D., Ph.D. Receives the Paul LoGerfo Research Award 

Mahsa Javid, M.D., Ph.D. received the Paul LoGerfo Research Award from the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons (AAES). The research award provides a funding mechanism for her research to study the role of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) in thyroid cancer.

Nancy DeMore, M.D. and Shikhar Mehrotra, Ph.D. Receive HCC Funding

Nancy DeMore, M.D. and Shikhar Mehrotra, Ph.D. received funding as part of the Hollings Cancer Center Pre-Clinical & Clinical Concept Award program, an internal funding mechanism that provides support for the development of pre-clinical and clinical trial concepts based on laboratory discoveries made at Hollings.

Fernando Herrera, M.D. Receives Research Grant from the Allergan Foundation

Fernando Herrera, M.D. was awarded a research grant from the Allergan Foundation. The purpose of this funding is to assist with creating a breast reconstructive database, outcomes research and breast reconstruction patient education.