UT Health San Antonio scientists awarded V Foundation grants to advance cancer research
Mays Cancer Center Annual Report
Elizabeth Wasmuth, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, was named this year’s V Foundation Abeloff Scholar. The award is for her proposal related to steroid receptor aberrations in cancers such as prostate, breast, uterine and ovarian.
The grant is for $600,000 over the next three years. Her unique reductionist system can test what current therapies are working, how resistance develops and what new drugs may provide a more nuanced approach.
Wasmuth’s award is funded through the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund. The V Foundation for Cancer Research was founded in 1993 by ESPN and the late basketball coach Jim Valvano with a mission statement to achieve “Victory Over Cancer.”
Josephine Taverna, MD, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine and the Division of Hematology and Oncology, also received a V Foundation grant. The grant is for her proposal to investigate checkpoint inhibitors for lung cancer treatment that can block cancer signaling within tumor habitats. She also received the A Grant of Her Own: The Women Scientists Innovation Award Translational Research grant. She is one of only six recipients in the United States to earn the $800,000, four-year grant.
“We predict that triple combination therapy will result in longer remissions so that our patients can stay on the immunotherapy and targeted therapy longer,” Taverna said.
