Founded in 1974, the University of Vermont Cancer Center is Vermont’s only not-for-profit comprehensive clinical and research cancer center.
Hello From Vermont
It has been a huge honor to lead this team of over 250 members and 40 staff at the University of Vermont Cancer Center.
Over the last year, community outreach and engagement has been a major focus of our team. We’ve served our catchment area through cancer screening and prevention programs, and we’re especially proud to report a 33% increase in lung cancer screening in the state of Vermont over the past two years.
We’ve also been educating the next generation of cancer doctors and scientists by adding 40 new trainee members and welcoming another 75 high school students back for our annual careers in cancer event. Next year, we’ll be taking lab tours on the road to rural schools with our new BioMobile education van.
Our research programs continue to expand their impact through policy measures, developing innovative therapies, and advancing our understanding of the causes of melanoma and breast cancer, two major cancers affecting our communities.
As we continue down our path towards NCI re-designation, we have been working to expand access and accrual to clinical trials. It has been a team effort to grow both the number of trials that we offer as well as the number of patients that we serve. In 2024, we are proud to celebrate an over 50% increase in cancer treatment trial accruals.
These highlights and more can be found throughout this digital report. Have fun scanning, and I invite you to reach out if something interests you -- our door is always open.
By the Numbers
In total grant funding
Members
Active research grants
Staff members
Grant Spotlights
Thomas Ahern Ph.D., MPH, received an R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop the first molecular test specifically geared toward identifying late recurrence risk in breast cancer patients diagnosed with hormone receptor-positive tumors. The project will assemble a multi-disciplinary and international team, including UVM Cancer Center members.
Nimrat Chatterjee, M.Sc., Ph.D., received the Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA, or R35) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The five-year, $1.9 million grant will support Chatterjee’s work studying DNA damage and mutagenic repair responses.
Three Cancer Center members received American Cancer Society (ACS) Institutional Research Grants: Diego Adrianzen-Herrera, M.D., for his project focused on myelodysplastic neoplasms; Vitor Mori, Ph.D., for his project to develop a computational model to predict the retention and distribution of tumor injections; and Elizabeth Scharnetzki, M.A., Ph.D., for her project to develop a comprehensive understanding of lung cancer survivors’ needs.
Sylvie Doublié, Ph.D., was part of a team that received an MPI R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health for research focused on understanding how DNA polymerase beta chooses the correct substrate for incorporation into DNA. This research will help build an understanding of how mutations arise in the genome.
Understanding the relationship between the signaling protein Kinase A and focal adhesions is the subject of a project led by Alan Howe, Ph.D. and funded by an R35 National Institutes of Health. The goal of Dr. Howe's project is to learn how cells are influenced by their surroundings through "reporter proteins."
Erika Ziller, Ph.D. -- Director of Larner College of Medicine’s Health Services Research Center, and Associate Professor of Medicine -- and her team will use a $2.8 million grant from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy to study the effect of federal policy on rural health care.
Through an Impact Award from the Department of Defense, Frances Carr, Ph.D. and Seth Frietze, Ph.D., will complete foundational and translational research and develop novel therapeutic strategies for thyroid cancer, with a focus on understanding how the transcription factor Thyroid Hormone Receptor Beta (TRb) acts as a tumor suppressor.