Symposium highlights UB’s cancer research efforts

The multitude of cancer research studies being conducted at UB was on full display recently at the UB Cancer Research Consortium Symposium.

The daylong symposium at UB’s Clinical and Translational Research Center featured more than a dozen research talks and two poster sessions. It was organized by Roberto Pili, an internationally renowned cancer and nutrition expert who is associate dean for cancer research and integrative oncology at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. He is a professor and chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Medicine, and vice president of oncology services for the Great Lakes Cancer Care Collaborative, a consortium of eight organizations including UBMD Physicians’ Group, Erie County Medical Center and Kaleida Health.

In her opening remarks, Allison Brashear, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, explained that UB’s Cancer Research Consortium brings together faculty from across the university who are focused on diagnosing, preventing and treating cancer.

“All of us in the community have been touched by cancer in some way,” Brashear said. “My own mother died of breast cancer 21 years ago, and we have several women across both sides of our families who have been affected by cancer. This is deeply important to me and also deeply important are the clinical trials that Dr. Pili runs.

“We all need better ways to diagnose, confine, treat and prevent cancer, and we can only do that in a team approach, which is why we are all here today at UB,” she added. “We want this symposium to be the beginning of innovation and hope it will be a first step in finding cures, treatment and prevention for our patients and all of Western New York.”

Pili outlined the three major areas of expertise at UB in cancer research:

• Epidemiology, prevention and early detection.
• Drug discovery and development.
• Drug toxicities and therapeutics interventions.

He gave attendees a snapshot of 2023 funding for cancer research at UB, noting it totaled $12.7 million, with $9.3 million in direct funding, and more importantly, $5.4 million in direct funding from the National Cancer Institute. UB currently has more than 100 active cancer awards, 18 R01 grants (nine new) and four R21s, with 39 investigators in 20 different departments in six schools.

The UB Cancer Research Consortium includes eight UB schools:

• College of Arts and Sciences.
• Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
• School of Dental Medicine.
• School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
• School of Nursing.
• School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
• School of Public Health and Health Professions.
• School of Social Work.

“The consortium aim is to foster collaboration that can be translated into successful grant applications,” Pili said.

He pointed out the consortium’s mission priorities are to:

• Serve the diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged community.
• Promote cancer health equity, access to cancer care and cutting-edge clinical trial testing.
• Study the genomic, epigenomic, environmental and behavioral factors contributing to cancer in Western New York.

“We want to build a strategic partnership with the SUNY system for coordination and access to biorepositories for basic science and translational research, and for a shared clinical trial portfolio,” Pili said.

“We also have increasing research collaborations with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Care and would like to form a clinical trials consortium with Roswell Park.”

Among the consortium’s strategic plans is to “assess cancer burden and disparities in Western New York and inform cancer research at UB,” Pili said.

The consortium also aims to train and retain future generations of cancer researchers in basic, translational, clinical and populations sciences research, as well as “develop new effective targeted and personalized therapies and their integration with dietary and lifestyles changes,” he said.

The keynote speaker at the symposium was Renier Brentjens, professor of medicine in the Jacobs School, deputy director and chair of the Department of Medicine at Roswell Park, and one of the foremost experts on CAR-T cell therapy. His talk about advances in cellular therapy was titled “CARs and Armored CARs: Moving Cellular Therapy Forward.”