Try this out for your daily mind teaser: what do you consider to be the three-to-five most significant advances in cancer research since 1971?

This is the question asked of me and the nation's other NCI-designated cancer center Directors by Dr. Skip Trump, former Director of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Inova Schar Cancer Institute, who is developing a history of the 50 year-mark of the National Cancer Institute.

My responses follow, but before you read on, think of yours.

I would love to see your list. Send it along.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Cancer Research UK (CRUK), the world’s leading funders of cancer research, are partnering to fund the Cancer Grand Challenges program. Cancer Grand Challenges will fund novel ideas by multidisciplinary research teams from around the world that offer the potential to advance bold cancer research and improve outcomes for people affected by cancer.

Through this partnership, NCI and CRUK expect to fund up to four awards for each round of Cancer Grand Challenges, with each multidisciplinary team being awarded approximately $25 million over five years. Nine challenges were developed through a series of international workshops and an open call for ideas from the cancer research community and people affected by cancer. Of these, the most compelling ideas were evaluated by experts in cancer research and provided their recommendations to CRUK. As funding partners, NCI and CRUK made the final decisions on Cancer Grand Challenges.

These nine challenges are aimed at solving complex problems in cancer research, which, if solved, could

have a transformative impact towards progress. The challenges now available encourage researchers to advance research in areas such as inflammation, extrachromosomal DNA, solid tumors in children, and more.

Last week, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) announced 25 grant and contract awardees who will participate in the launch of the Serological Sciences Network for COVID-19, dubbed SeroNet. SeroNet is an initiative to quickly increase the nation's antibody testing capacity and courage research into understanding the COVID-19 immune response.

Timothy Chan, MD, PhD and co-PI David Zidar, MD, PhD were awarded one of 13 U01 grants to conduct their research project, "Pre-exposure Immunologic Health and Linkages to SARS-CoV-2 Serologic Responses, Endothelial Cell Resilience, and Cardiovascular Complications: Defining the mechanistic basis of high-risk endotypes."

Dr. Chan is Director of the Center for Immunotherapy and Precision Immuno-Oncology at Cleveland Clinic, Co-Director of the National Center for Regenerative Medicine, and member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center's Hematopoietic and Immune Cancer Biology Program. Dr. Zidar is an interventional cardiologist at University Hospitals and assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Chan and Zidar will bring together cardiologists, oncologists and researchers from Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and Case Western Reserve on the project to test how pre-existing immune dysregulation and/or cardiovascular disease could impair immune pathways required for an effective response to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Their project is one of two SeroNet projects awarded to Case Western Reserve. Christopher King, MD, PhD, professor of pathology and member of the Center for Global Health Diseases at the CWRU School of Medicine, is leading the other project, "Early Drivers of Humoral Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 Infections."

John Mulvihill, MS, longtime technical manager of the Radiation Resources Facility, announced his retirement last month. John is a skilled physicist who managed the facility for over 30 years, during which time he demonstrated complete dedication to making it work for all users. Past facility directors praised John for this ability to navigate the complicated systems and requirements related to the facility's activities and ensure user research was conducted in a safe environment. All irradiator users greatly appreciated John's expert input and especially benefited from John's generous willingness to make himself available to researchers whenever needed to facilitate their research efforts. John was a special resource because he cheerfully was there to help anyone with their work under all circumstances. His willingness to be available nights and weekends to accommodate demanding experimental protocols was a unique and much appreciated contribution. Former Radiation Resources director Nancy Oleinick, PhD, summarized it best, "The University and the Cancer Center were fortunate to have hired and retained John. I wish him well in his retirement."

The 2nd Annual Artificial Intelligence in Oncology Symposium: Advancing Science and Policy is kicking off virtually this Monday, October 19! Attendees will hear from 15 speakers and panelists on how AI and machine learning are being used as diagnostic and prognostic tools in pathology and radiology, their role in drug discovery, and the ethics and policy surrounding this ever-evolving field.

Highlights of day one of the conference include a focused-session in pathology with a keynote from Yinyin Yuan, PhD of the Institute of Cancer Research, London, a plenary address from Geraldine McGinty, MD, MBA, FACR entitled, "Fostering a Strong Ecosystem for AI in Medical Imaging" and a radiology-focused session keynote from Google's Aashima Gupta, MS.

The second day of the symposium features a session on drug discovery with a keynote from Stanford's Russ Altman, MD, PhD, Outstanding Abstract Awardee Presentations, and an ethics and policy session with a keynote from UCSF's Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH.

NEW! This year, attendees are invited to participate in "Ask The Experts" meet-ups, designed to enable greater networking and provide an opportunity for participants to ask questions and trainees to make connections on their career paths with the leading experts in the field. Immediately following day 2 of the symposium, AIO 2020 Planning committee members will host these virtual meet-ups in Radiology (Mehdi Alilou and Satish Viswanath) and Digital Pathology (Andrew Janowczyk and Anant Madabhushi).

Registration will remain open throughout the event, with recordings posted for attendees with schedule conflicts within 24 hours. A special student registration rate is available.

The Case Comprehensive Cancer Center and Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics would like to thank the following #AIO2020 sponsors and exhibitors for their generous support of the event: Aiforia, Bristol Myers Squibb, Jay and Harita Patel, Larvol, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech and Tempus.

The Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, with funds from its American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant, will provide seed money to foster cancer research by junior faculty who have no current national grant support of their own. Investigators in the CWRU School of Medicine, University Hospitals of Cleveland, and Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine as well as in other schools and colleges affiliated with Case Western Reserve University are eligible. Grants, not to exceed $40,000, will be awarded to investigators who intend to gather preliminary data to be used in seeking future and independently funded programs.

Postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, research associates, and instructors within another PI’s laboratory are not eligible to apply for these research grants. The subject of the proposed research must be directly related to cancer. The principal investigator must be a full-time member of the faculty within 6 years of their first full-time independent faculty appointment (or equivalent).

The Case Comprehensive Cancer Center seeks proposals for projects to be included in the upcoming renewal application for the current Case GI SPORE program. 

All Case CCC faculty members are invited to submit project pre-proposals to compete for R01-level funding for up to five years by selection for incorporation as a full project in the GI SPORE renewal application. 

All proposals must be directed towards translational research of a GI malignancy, with at least one specific aim that involves direct study of patients or of consented human tissues as defined in the SPORE RFA.

The Case Comprehensive Cancer Center requests applications for Cancer Data Sciences pilot projects. Cancer Data Sciences will serve as a discipline in the Case CCC to standardize and organize data for optimal use and leverage advanced analytic approaches to enable independent and synergistic research for basic, clinical, population and translation sciences. Pilot applications should focus on driving new analytical capabilities, developing novel algorithms in order to mine, organize, and standardize cancer data as well as utilizing data sciences approaches to extract knowledge from complex, multi-level cancer data for maximal impact.