Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer Studies Bolstered by New NCI Grant
A multidisciplinary team of researchers at the OSUCCC – James will use a five-year, $2.1 million R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute to study how BRAF gene mutations promote therapeutic resistance to radiation and other genotoxic therapies in patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer, a solid tumor with a very poor prognosis.
Studying the mechanisms of this resistance will enable principal investigator (PI) Terence Williams, MD, PhD, associate professor of Radiation Oncology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, co-PI Manisha Shah, MD, professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at Ohio State College of Medicine, and their colleagues to develop tumor-selective approaches to enhancing sensitivity to genotoxic therapies for BRAF-mutant and BRAF wild-type ATC, thus improving physicians’ ability to treat and control this disease.