Eyler Awarded NCI K08 for Rectal Cancer and RadOnc Research

Duke Cancer Institute radiation oncologist Christine Eyler, MD, PhD, was recently awarded a K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award from the National Cancer Institute. The title of the award is "Harnessing treatment-induced tumor evolution and collateral sensitivities using a human rectal cancer co-clinical platform." The overall goal of the project is to identify and validate evolving rectal cancer collateral sensitivities during chemo-radiotherapy.

"This project utilizes a panel of rectal cancer organoids isolated as a component of a successful clinical protocol recently conducted out of our Department," said Eyler, a medical instructor in the Department of Radiation Oncology. "Using these organoids as a model system, I use genomic and epigenomic profiling alongside single cell approaches to characterize tumor evolutionary changes in response to treatment. I will also utilize unbiased iterative screening approaches to identify novel chemoradiotherapy-induced collateral sensitivities in an effort to identify and implement new treatment strategies for rectal cancer."

Eyler's mentors on the $1.2M project (over five years) are DCI members Kris Wood, PhD, and David Kirsch, MD, PhD.

This article, with some modification, originally appeared on the Department of Radiation Oncology website, and was posted here with the author's permission