The ROI’s research portfolio continued to grow in 2021 with four new awards to support research on biomarkers for radiation oncology. Two teams are using biochips to analyze blood samples and increase treatment personalization. The test being developed by David Miyamoto, MD, PhD, will detect and analyze circulating tumor cells in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer to help identify patients who can be effectively treated with bladder-preserving trimodality therapy, a combination of radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and limited surgery that avoids removing the entire bladder. The biochip device being studied by Nina Sanford, MD, and Wen Jiang, MD, PhD, captures circulating exosomes to detect a microRNA specific to anal cancer and can be used to monitor disease progression and treatment response. This year’s James D. Cox Awards went to two outstanding ASTRO Members-in-Training. Sonal Noticewala, MD, MAS, is exploring the role of the microbiome in how patients with pancreatic cancer respond to neoadjuvant chemoradiation, and Hesham Elhalawani, MD, MSc, is using radiomics to develop a decision-making tool to help diagnose radiation necrosis earlier in patients being treated with immunotherapy and stereotactic radiosurgery for brain metastases. Dr. Elhalawani shared his research in an invited presentation, “Identifying a Quantitative Imaging Biomarker for Cerebral Radiation Necrosis,” at the Annual Dartmouth Radiation Oncology Research Retreat in November.
Several ROI researchers reported results from their studies this year. Fumiko Chino, MD, presented the poster, “Patient Reported Outcomes and Financial Toxicity in Head and Neck Cancer (PaRTNer): Baseline Financial Toxicity and Attitudes Toward Costs from a Pilot Study,” at the ASCO Quality Care Symposium in September. At this year’s ASTRO Annual Meeting, Robert Dess, MD, presented, “Prognostic and Predictive Performance of Routine Clinicopathologic Variables in 10,535 Men Enrolled on Randomized Phase III Trials in Localized Prostate Cancer,” which was supported by the grant that accompanied his 2020 ROI Publication Award, and Malcolm Mattes, MD, presented “Approaches to Medical Student Outreach at Academic Radiation Oncology Programs.” Dr. Mattes has also engaged with more than 400 medical students to raise awareness of radiation oncology through nearly 20 presentations at medical schools and a series of four webinars. In May, El-Sayed Ibrahim, PhD, and Carmen Bergom, MD, PhD, published "Value CMR: Towards a Comprehensive, Rapid, Cost-Effective Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging" in the International Journal of Biomedical Imaging.
Follow on funding for ROI researchers also grew in 2021. Adam Wolfe, MD, PhD, who concluded his ROI-supported project on microRNAs as predictive biomarkers for pancreatic cancer and graduated from residency, is continuing his explorations of molecular signatures to provide more personalized care for patients with pancreatic cancer as a Clinical Research KL2 Scholar at his new institution, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Todd McNutt, PhD, received an ROI award in 2016 to conduct research on head and neck cancer using Oncospace, a big data analytics platform for radiation oncology that enables quality control, clinical decision support, and hypothesis generation for research. Oncospace Inc. was formed and began operations on April 1, 2019, and the startup secured $1.5 million in SBIR grants from the National Science Foundation and National Cancer Institute this year, including further research specific to head and neck cancer.
The ROI is looking forward to expanding its research portfolio in 2022 with even more projects that leverage artificial intelligence to enhance radiation therapy delivery and outcomes. Many applicants submitted letters of intent for the ROI’s most recent funding opportunity, the review is underway, and the new awards focused on artificial intelligence will be announced in late spring. 2022 promises to be another year of exciting growth for the ROI!