The AACR NextGen Grants for Transformative Cancer Research represent the AACR’s flagship funding initiative to stimulate highly innovative research from young investigators. This grant mechanism is intended to promote and support creative, paradigm-shifting cancer research that may not be funded through conventional channels. The research can be in any area of basic, translational, or clinical science.

2023 grantee

Research

The bone microenvironment plays an important role in breast cancer progression. In previous studies, Dr. Bado and colleagues identified a central role of osteogenic cells in mediating epigenetic reprogramming in bone metastasis. This process was associated with therapeutic resistance and metastasis progression. In this project, Dr. Bado’s team will profile and investigate pro-survival niches during bone metastasis using multiplex imaging and transcriptomic approaches.

Biography

Dr. Bado completed his doctorate at the University of Houston, where he worked on tumor suppressive mechanisms of estrogen receptor ß in breast cancer. He then joined Baylor College of Medicine where he worked on dissecting the interplay between osteogenic cells and cancer cells during bone metastasis progression as a postdoctoral fellow, and subsequently, as an instructor.  He is now an assistant professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His lab works on epigenetic plasticity and multi-organ metastasis in breast cancer.

Acknowledgement of Support

“Being a recipient of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR NextGen Grants for Transformative Cancer Research is a true honor for me. It is a reminder that I don’t stand alone as a young investigator in the fight against cancer. This grant will allow my team to study highly complex mechanisms associated with bone metastasis.”