Two Mount Sinai cancer researchers will be awarded $4 million in total costs from the National Institutes of Health Common Fund, which supports high-impact programs and research by junior scientists around the country.
Deborah Marshall, assistant professor of radiation oncology at The Tisch Cancer Institute and The Blavatnik Family Women’s Health Research Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Jalal Ahmed Khan, assistant professor of radiation oncology at the Precision Immunology Institute and The Tisch Cancer Institute, each received an Early Independence Award worth $2 million given out over five years.
This award, established in 2011, provides an opportunity for junior scientists to skip traditional postdoctoral training and move immediately into independent research positions.
Marshall’s study seeks to define novel predictors of female sexual dysfunction and to identify quantitative imaging and microbiome-based biomarker indices associated with damage to specific sexual organs from radiation oncology treatments. Results of the study will rapidly provide transformative data and inform personalized interventions to preserve female sexual function or mitigate the effects of radiation in this understudied population.
Ahmed Khan’s study seeks to advance the cancer therapy known as chimeric antigen receptor CAR T-cell therapy for solid tumors by manipulating CAR T cell interactions with the immune tumor microenvironment.
The lab will use tumor models to understand the parameters driving the activity and fate of CAR T cells, and design novel CAR T-cell therapies that capitalize on the immunobiology of solid tumors to form durable anti-tumor responses.
In addition to providing advanced radiotherapy to a diverse population of cancer patients, Marshall directs a laboratory aiming to advance the understanding of the impacts of radiotherapy on sexual function in women and female-bodied cancer patients across the lifespan. The lab applies radiobiological imaging, and multi-omic methods in human research to prevent and mitigate the effects of radiotherapy on sexual function and improve quality of life after cancer treatment.
Ahmed Khan leads the Ahmed Khan lab, which is part of the interdisciplinary Precision Immunology Institute and The Tisch Cancer Institute at Icahn Mount Sinai. The lab is recruiting student and postdoctoral researchers in immunology and immunotherapy.
This work is supported by the NIH Common Fund under award numbers DP5OD031876 and DP5OD031828 to Marshall and Ahmed Khan, respectively.
