Two Columbia Teams Win Cancer-Engineering Seed Grants

Two Columbia University research teams have been awarded seed grants from the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) and Columbia Engineering. The winning projects, jointly funded by the two divisions, underscore cutting-edge, innovative research that combine diverse expertise in engineering and oncology.

The multidisciplinary teams each receive a one-year, $80,000 award. The partnership between Columbia Engineering and the HICCC is flourishing and includes educational initiatives and additional funding opportunities that aim to spur out-of-the-box ideas and solutions to address cancer. 

Christoph Juchem, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering
Kenneth Olive, PhD, associate professor of medicine, director of Oncology Precision Therapeutics and Imaging Core and co-director of the Precision Oncology and Systems Biology program (POSB).
Project: “Measuring ferroptosis in vivo using magnetic resonance spectroscopy”

Brent R. Stockwell, PhD, professor and chair of biological sciences, professor of chemistry and member of POSB
Elham Azizi, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, member of POSB
Co-investigators: Helen Remotti, MD, associate professor of pathology and cell biology and member of the Tumor Biology and Microenvironment program (TBM); Robert Schwabe, MD, professor of medicine and member of TBM
Project: “Identifying 3D tumor metabolic neighborhoods using mass spectrometry imaging and machine learning”