The Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Career Development Award for Pancreatic Cancer Research, in Honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, represents a joint effort to support the career advancement of a female scientist engaged in pancreatic cancer research. The Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Career Development Award for Pancreatic Cancer Research, in Honor of John Robert Lewis, represents a joint effort to encourage and support early career scientists engaged in pancreatic cancer research who are members of racial or ethnic groups that have been shown to be underrepresented in the cancer-related sciences workforce. 

2025 GRantees

Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Career Development Award for Pancreatic Cancer Research, in Honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Scientific Statement of Research 

 Although KRAS inhibitors are a promising class of drugs that have shown early signs of efficacy in clinical trials, many patients experience relapse as tumors adapt and develop resistance. Dr. Singhal has recently identified a specific population of cancer cells—those in a highly differentiated, ‘classical’ epithelial state—that persist during KRAS inhibitor treatment and serve as a reservoir for disease recurrence. Building on these findings, she aims to define the molecular vulnerabilities of this resistant cell population. Using advanced techniques such as low-input proteomics, and in vivo CRISPR-based genetic screening, she and her research team will identify new therapeutic targets within these cells and evaluate combination strategies to enhance the durability of KRAS-directed therapies. Ultimately, this work may inform more effective, state-targeted treatment approaches for patients with pancreatic cancer and mitigate treatment resistance. 

Biography  

Dr. Singhal earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and went on to complete her medical degree at Weill Cornell Medical College and doctoral degree at The Rockefeller University through the Tri-Institutional M.D.-Ph.D. Program. She trained in internal medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital and completed her fellowship in medical oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). She is now a Clinical Instructor on the Gastrointestinal Oncology service at MSKCC. Her research focuses on tumor cell plasticity and mechanisms of drug resistance in pancreatic cancer. 

Acknowledgment of Support 

“This award will provide essential support to advance my research on drug resistance in pancreatic cancer and help identify new therapeutic targets. I am grateful to the Foundation for supporting my goal of leading a translational research program to improve outcomes for patients with treatment-refractory pancreatic cancer.” 

Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Pancreatic Cancer Career Development Award, in Honor of John Robert Lewis

Scientific Statement of Research  

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is highly resistant to radiation therapy (RT), particularly in locally advanced disease, limiting effective treatment options. Dr. Pagan seeks to overcome RT resistance in mutant KRAS-driven PDAC by targeting ferroptosis, an iron-dependent form of cell death induced by lipid peroxidation. Preliminary data suggest that PDAC cells surviving RT exhibit metabolic adaptations in lipid pathways, enhancing their defense against ferroptosis. Thus, Dr. Pagan hypothesizes that combining redox-modulating agents with KRAS inhibition will enhance radiosensitivity by promoting ferroptosis. In addition to defining ferroptosis’s role in RT responses, he plans to evaluate whether these combined interventions sensitize PDAC cells to ferroptosis induction. 

 Biography  

Dr. Pagan earned his MD/PhD through a partnership between the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine and MD Anderson Cancer Center. He then completed his residency in radiation oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Pagan is an assistant professor in the Department of GI Radiation Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center and a physician-scientist who focuses on systems oncology approaches to define molecular signatures of radiation therapy response in pancreatic cancer, with an emphasis on metabolic adaptations. 

 Acknowledgment of Support 

“The Lustgarten-Foundation-AACR Career Development Award will be pivotal in helping to establish my career as a physician-scientist in pancreatic cancer research, investigating synergistic radiation therapy targets. This support will also facilitate key collaborations within the pancreatic cancer research community that can lead to innovations in improving treatment options for this devasting disease.”  

2024 Grantees

Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Career Development Award for Pancreatic Cancer Research, in Honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Research

Pancreatic cancer has a survival rate of less than 12% beyond 5 years post diagnosis. This highlights the urgent need for improved treatments as current therapies face significant patient resistance. Immunotherapy, while successful in certain cancers, has limited efficacy in pancreatic cancer due to a highly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment characterized by extensive infiltration of tumor-associated neutrophils. The immunosuppressive function of tumor-associated neutrophils is dependent upon the increased production of reactive oxygen species, primarily by myeloperoxidase. Although myeloperoxidase inhibitors show promise in other diseases, their application in cancer remains unexplored. The proposed studies will provide mechanistic insight into how myeloperoxidase regulates tumor-associated neutrophil function and impacts immunotherapy response. This project aims to investigate whether inhibiting myeloperoxidase improves immune checkpoint therapy, which could be a clinically translatable treatment strategy that would expand current therapeutic options for pancreatic cancer patients.

Biography

Dr. Liu earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia and her doctorate in medical biophysics from the University of Toronto. Following her doctoral studies, Dr. Liu completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology at West Virginia University.

Acknowledgment of Support

“I’m incredibly honored to receive the 2024 Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Career Development Award for Pancreatic Cancer Research, in Honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her legacy in advancing gender equality has paved the way for my career as a woman scientist. This award supports my pancreatic cancer research and boosts my confidence, affirming the potential impact of my work.”

Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Pancreatic Cancer Career Development Award, in Honor of John Robert Lewis

Research

There is an immediate need for more effective treatments for pancreatic cancer. Most pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells rely heavily on the catabolic recycling process, autophagy. Targeting autophagy in vitro and in vivo has shown encouraging results leading to several clinical trials in PDAC. Despite some favorable responses, the impact on overall PDAC survival with these therapies is limited, likely due to inherent and acquired resistance. Recently, Dr. Towers found that cultured PDAC cells also acquire resistance to pharmacological autophagy inhibition. She proposes that a better understanding of these adaptive mechanisms will help identify ideal combination therapies to improve the efficacy of autophagy inhibition in pancreatic cancer patients. Preliminary analyses from Dr. Towers’ lab suggest that PDAC cells resistant to autophagy inhibition have an increased dependency on nucleotide metabolism pathways. Dr. Towers’ project will leverage these mechanisms to identify new combination therapies to treat pancreatic cancer.

Biography

Dr. Towers completed both her doctorate and postdoctoral studies at the University of Colorado. During this time, she developed unique CRISPR/Cas9 tools to understand the recycling process, autophagy, in cancer cells. Dr. Towers is currently an assistant professor at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in San Diego, where she launched her own lab in 2021 that focuses on targeting autophagy in pancreatic cancer. She was recently named a Pew-Stewart Scholar and V scholar and has received the Black in Cancer Young Investigator Award, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Diversity Leadership Award, and the NIH New Innovator Award. 

Acknowlegment of Support

“I am so grateful to The Lustgarten Foundation and AACR for funding our work. It’s an honor to be funded by this award in the name of the civil rights leader John Robert Lewis. This will help us make fundamental discoveries about pancreatic cancer metabolism and identify better combination therapies.”

2023 grantees

Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Career Development Award for Pancreatic Cancer Research, in Honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Research

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is often diagnosed after distant metastases are present. Recent anatomical studies use 3D mapping approaches to study invasion patterns of localized pancreatic cancer; however, studies of 3D PDAC morphology at distant sites is lacking. Dr. Kiemen proposes to profile 3D anatomical, immune, and transcriptomic signatures of pancreatic cancer liver metastases and use this information to . She plans to use CODA (a technique for quantifying complex microanatomy) to three-dimensionally reconstruct liver tissue. She will then compare untreated and neoadjuvant chemotherapy- treated human liver, utilizing spatial transcriptomics to profile regions of interest. This project has the potential to improve understanding of PDAC invasion in the liver and to improve the ability to assess response to treatment.

Biography

Dr. Kiemen received her undergraduate degree in 2016 from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, majoring in Chemical Engineering. She received her master’s degree in 2017 from the London School of Economics and Political Science, majoring in Philosophy. She received her doctorate in 2021 from the Johns Hopkins University, in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. She is currently an assistant professor of pathology and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Acknowledgment of Support

“I am honored to be a recipient of a 2023 Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Career Development Award for Pancreatic Cancer Research, in Honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for a proposal studying pancreatic cancer morphology in liver metastases using 3D mapping tools. It is an honor to receive this award in the name of such an iconic and inspiring figure in our society.”

Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Pancreatic Cancer Career Development Award, in Honor of John Robert Lewis

Research

Dr. Ferrer and her colleagues’ studies have recently shown that glutathione S-transferase, Gstt1, is required for dissemination and metastasis of pancreatic cancer and is retained within a latent subset of existing metastases. This subset is endowed with metastasis-initiating potential and preserves an expression signature characteristic of disseminated tumor cells associated with poor prognosis. An understanding of how this subset of cells remains latent while retaining metastasis-initiating capacity is still limited. Dr. Ferrer will investigate cell-intrinsic and microenvironmental mechanisms governing metastasis-initiating cells (MICs). Using a combination of orthotopic lineage-tracing models, gene expression profiling, and genetic approaches, she seeks to uncover insights into MIC ecosystems during each stage of the metastatic cascade and lay the foundation for the development of novel combination therapy regimens to target MICs in pancreatic cancer.

Biography

Dr. Ferrer made significant contributions to understanding how oncogenic alterations drive metabolic reprogramming in cancer during her doctoral work. She then continued her training as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital where she studied cancer metastasis in the context of identifying gene expression changes that are unique to existing metastatic tumors, particularly in pancreatic cancer. She is currently a faculty member of the Department of Pharmacology and the Greenbaum Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where her lab focuses on identifying characteristics of MICs.

Acknowledgement of Support

“I am extremely honored to receive the 2023 Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Career Development Award for Pancreatic Cancer Research, in Honor of John R. Lewis. The award will allow my group to explore critical questions regarding how pancreatic cancer cells metastasize and survive, while also providing a supportive environment for underrepresented minority trainees.”