Benjamin Izar and Chao Lu Win V Scholar Grants for Innovative Cancer Research

The V Foundation has awarded Benjamin Izar, MD, PhD, and Chao Lu, PhD, both members of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC), a V Scholar grant to support their respective projects in cancer research.

Dr. Izar, an assistant professor of medicine and member of the HICCC’s Precision Oncology and Systems Biology research program, also has been named an Abeloff V Scholar, a special designation given to the highest rated V Scholar in honor of Martin D. Abeloff, MD, an esteemed member of the foundation’s Scientific Advisory Committee. Dr. Izar’s research uses novel technologies, specifically single-cell sequencing and multiplex imaging, on patient tissues to explore drug resistance and to understand underlying mechanisms in the context of targeted cancer therapies and immunotherapies.

The V Scholar grant will fund Dr. Izar’s project, “Mechanisms of liver metastasis and associated resistance to immunotherapy” for the two-year period. Among others, cancers that spread to the liver, impact the entire body’s ability to respond to certain therapies, such as immunotherapies—treatments that help the body’s own immune system to detect and eliminate cancer cells. While immunotherapy drugs can be extremely effective, patients with cancer spread to the liver are significantly less likely to respond to these, say Dr. Izar, and the underlying reasons for this are poorly understood.

The V Foundation is supporting the Izar lab’s work to better understand the molecular mechanisms of liver metastasis and how these lesions affect patient responses to immunotherapies.

Dr. Lu, assistant professor of genetics and development and member of the Cancer Genomics and Epigenomics research program at the HICCC, specializes in the study of chromatin dynamics and its role in human diseases, particularly cancer. His V Scholar project, “Targeting chromatin co-dependency for MLL-rearranged leukemia”, will examine the interplay between chromatin pathways in the development and treatment of pediatric blood cancers.

Dr. Lu, in collaboration with the lab of Adolfo Ferrando, MD, PhD, a leading expert in pediatric leukemia, will research effective therapeutic strategy against difficult-to-treat MLL-r pediatric leukemias. Leukemic cells in these patients carry a specific type of genetic alteration, that combines one part of the MLL gene and one part of partner genes such as AF9, known as MLL rearrangement, or MLL-r. MLL-r is critical for the development and maintenance of leukemia cells and has been extensively studied over the years but current therapies have not proven effective, pointing to the need of identifying additional drug targets.

Each year, the V Scholar Grant is awarded to young tenure-track faculty early in their cancer research careers, supporting projects that are either laboratory-based fundamental research or translational research. The scholars receive a two-year grant of $100,000 per year. Fellow HICCC faculty member and pancreatic cancer biologist Christine Chio was named a V Scholar in 2018.