Winship teams receive Donaldson Charitable Trust pilot grants.

Investigators from Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have been awarded pilot grants from the Donaldson Charitable Trust Research Synergy Fund, a unique funding opportunity offered jointly by Winship, the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

Each one-year grant of $125,000 is funded through a generous donation from the Oliver S. and Jennie R. Donaldson Charitable Trust. The grants are intended to advance collaborative research at the intersection of basic science, biomedical engineering and clinical care, with the goal of accelerating innovations that improve the lives of children and adults with cancer.

This cycle’s Donaldson Charitable Trust Research Synergy Fund pilot grant recipients are below:

“Targeting MERTK to improve immunotherapeutic response by NSCLC”

Douglas K. Graham, MD, PhD

Chief and William G. Woods, MD, Chair
Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Emory University School of Medicine

Susan N. Thomas, PhD

Professor, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Parker H. Petit Institute of Bioengineering and Bioscience
Georgia Institute of Technology

“Leveraging 3D bioprinted spheroid cultures to explore tumor microenvironment contributions to immunotherapy resistance in neuroblastoma”

Vahid Serpooshan, PhD

Assistant Professor, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University School of Medicine

Kelly C. Goldsmith, MD

Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Emory University School of Medicine
Director Neuroblastoma/MIBG Therapy Program
Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta