Medicine’s Justin Lathia receives 2026 ASPIRE Award to examine potential treatments for aggressive brain cancer
Justin Lathia, PhD, professor of molecular medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and co-leader of Case Comprehensive Cancer Center's Molecular Oncology Program, recently received a 2026 ASPIRE Award from The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research. The funding supports translational studies aimed at identifying new therapeutic strategies for glioblastoma.
Lathia’s work is advancing research investigating how biological sex influences platelet function in glioblastoma and how these differences may shape treatment response and growing evidence that platelet biology contributes to tumor progression and may represent a tractable therapeutic target.
With the help of this funding, Lathia’s team will evaluate whether existing platelet-modulating drugs can be repurposed to improve outcomes in this aggressive brain cancer. Over the next year, the team will test the hypothesis that platelet-targeted strategies may produce sex-specific therapeutic effects. Results from this work could inform development of an early-phase clinical trial targeted for 2027 to 2028.
