The Case Comprehensive Cancer Center (Case CCC) extends congratulations to members Omar Mian, MD, PhD, Tae Hyun Hwang, PhD and Shilpa Gupta, MD as they were recently awarded a Translational Team Science Award from the Department of Defense totaling $2.3 million. Their project is entitled, "Dissecting combinatorial synergies to improve immune checkpoint inhibitor response in bladder cancer." The three initiating and partnering principle investigators will combine their expertise in clinical, translational and computational science to address critical unanswered questions related to the limited efficacy of bladder cancer immunotherapy.
Drs. Mian, Hwang, and Gupta, all staff at Cleveland Clinic, have cultivated a team of collaborators including fellow Case CCC members Byron Lee, MD, PhD, Marcela Diaz, PhD and Lily Wang, PhD. They will also be joined by Moshe Ornstein, MD, MA, Chandana Reddy, DO, Jane Nguyen, MD, PhD and Aysegul Balyimez, PhD.
The group aims to accelerate prognosis, treatment and survivorship directly toward clinical applications by improving ability to tailor immunotherapy. The project will study specific myeloid cells that suppress anti-tumor immunity and block tumor clearance by the immune system, and explore tumor and immune proteins that control myeloid cell function. The team will also integrate artificial intelligence algorithms to build computational tools to help clinicians and scientists select the best-tailored treatment approaches.