Leading cancer scientists working with the New York Genome Center (NYGC) announced today that grants are being awarded to fund six projects that address the role of ethnicity in several major cancer types, taking advantage of the diversity of patients being treated at health care institutions throughout the New York City area.
The awards are being made under the auspices of a NYGC research initiative, called Polyethnic-1000 (P-1000), which was launched in 2018 to help address cancer care inequities in underserved populations.
Of the six projects chosen for the first round of grants, four have investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine, a remarkable and notable achievement. We offer our heartiest congratulations to the recipients of these grants.
“Immunogenomic Determinants of Ethnic Disparities in Clinical Outcomes for Urothelial Cancer Patients,” a Weill Cornell Medicine study to determine how ethnic diversity affects the clinical outcomes of bladder cancer. The multi-disciplinary team will be led by Drs. Bishoy Faltas and Olivier Elemento.
“Ethnic-based Differences Between East Asian and Caucasian Patients in Genomic, Transcriptomic and Immune Profiles of Pre-invasive and Invasive Adenocarcinoma of the Lung,” a study that aims to identify the somatic alterations in non-solid lung nodules in East Asian and Caucasian patients that explain the significant demographic, clinical and biological differences between these two groups. The multi-disciplinary research team includes Drs. Nasser Altorki, Alain Borczuk, Timothy McGraw, Giuseppe Giacconi, and Olivier Elemento.
“Molecular Links between Ancestry and Outcome Disparity in Breast and Prostate Cancer Patients Across the African Diaspora in New York City,” a study to identify molecular links between African ancestry and aggressive forms of breast and prostate cancer and investigate these as a source of racial disparities in cancer outcomes. Co-PIs include: Drs. Olivier Elemento, Cora Sternberg, Juan Miguel Mosquera, and Melissa Davis.
“Mechanisms of Endometrial Cancer Disparities in African Americans,” a collaborative study by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Weill-Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and Northwell Health. The aim is to establish an annotated biobank and create the necessary clinical and experimental frameworks to gain new insights about the endometrial cancer disparities in African Americans. The WCM Lead investigator is Dr. Wen Shen.