February 12, 2022:

Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium (Big Ten CRC) investigators recently published results of clinical trial BTCRC-ESO14-012 in the notable Frontiers in Oncology journal. 

The publication titled, A Phase II Trial of Adjuvant Durvalumab Following Trimodality Therapy for Locally Advanced Esophageal and Gastroesophageal Junction Adenocarcinoma: A Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium Study, found adjuvant durvalumab in patients with residual disease in the surgical specimen following trimodality therapy (a combination of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery) for locally advanced esophageal and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma led to clinically meaningful improvement in 1-year relapse free survival compared to the historical control rate.  Read More

February 11, 2022:

Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium investigators presented a trial in progress abstract at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The abstract titled, A Phase II Study of Pembrolizumab plus Fulvestrant in Hormone Receptor Positive, HER-2 Negative Advanced/Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients, was presented by Nancy Chan, MD of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. Read More

January 28, 2022: 

The Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium (Big Ten CRC) honored member institution, University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center and George Weiner, MD (pictured left), of the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Iowa on Wednesday, January 26, during the monthly Big Ten CRC Grand Rounds meeting. Read More

December 7, 2021:

This month, the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium highlights UW Carbone Cancer Center and Jeremy Kratz, MD, a medical oncologist and researcher at the cancer center. Dr. Kratz is a member of the Big Ten CRC’s Gastrointestinal Clinical Trial Working Group.

For Dr. Kratz, pushing cancer care and research forward is much more than an academic pursuit. It’s personal. Read More

November 7, 2021:

This month, the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium features our member institution University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center and medical oncologist Margaret Byrne, MD, MS, clinical assistant professor of Internal Medicine-Hematology, Oncology, and Blood and Marrow Transplantation at the Carver College of Medicine.

Dr. Byrne’s research interests include early-phase clinical trials of adjunctive therapies to enhance the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors in patients with head, neck, and lung cancers. Her clinical expertise includes thoracic malignancies and head and neck cancer. Read More

November 2, 2021:

Since its founding in 2013, the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium (Big Ten CRC) has experienced steady growth, guided by a Steering Committee whose members consist of one representative from each institution. Collectively, the group meets regularly to oversee the activities of the consortium and to decide matters of policy. Each year, the committee appoints a chair and a vice-chair.

Peter G. Shields, MD (pictured left), of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC-James) currently serves as Steering Committee chair, and Thomas G. Sors, PhD, of the Purdue Institute of Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease (PI4D), is vice-chair, representing the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research.

Dr. Shields, a thoracic medical oncologist, oversees the scientific research programs and research infrastructure of the OSUCCC-James, which includes more than 330 cancer researchers and their teams from 11 of Ohio State’s 15 colleges. Through his experience, Dr. Shields understands the importance of multi-institution collaboration to meet the needs of cancer patients as well as investigators, many of whom are early in their careers. Read More

October 28, 2021:

Coral Omene, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, was recently appointed as a co-chair of the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium’s Breast Cancer Clinical Trial Working Group. She joins Sneha Phadke, DO, a medical oncologist at the University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, in leading the working group.

Dr. Omene serves as assistant professor of medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Her research focuses on triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), which is among the most aggressive breast cancers, especially among African American women.

A native New Yorker, Dr. Omene received her MD and PhD degrees from Columbia University and completed her residency at New York Presbyterian – Columbia. She also completed a fellowship at New York University School of Medicine, NYU Langone Medical Center. Read More

October 15, 2021:

In this month’s Across the Consortium, the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium highlights several investigators involved in detecting, decoding, and understanding genetic abnormalities as well as a potential drug target for treating aggressive pancreatic cancer and a tumor cell that may potentially stop tumor cell seeding and block cancer progression in breast cancer. We also feature a married couple at Penn State Cancer Institute that are building a research program using the MRIdian LINAC by Viewray, a Magnetic Res Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)-guided linear accelerator, one of only 18 units currently open in the U.S. Learn about recent appointments, news grants, and more across our member institutions.

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October 13, 2021:

Muhammad Furqan, MD, a medical oncologist and researcher at the University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, presented a featured poster highlighting the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium study BTCRC-LUN15-017 during the IASLC 2021 World Conference on Lung Cancer, held virtually Sept. 8-14.

Investigators of the single arm phase Ib/II study of pembrolizumab and Imprime PGG for patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after progression on first line therapy, found the combination to be safe in patients with locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC.

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October 4, 2021:

This month, the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium features our member institution The Cancer Center at Illinois at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Neha Gothe, MA, PhD, associate professor of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who serves as director of the university’s Exercise Psychology Lab.

She is taking her expertise in kinesiology and behavioral psychology to explore the benefits of non-traditional forms of movement, such as yoga, in cancer survivors.

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