(July 13, 2021 - Bethesda, MD) Today, the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN) announced the two recipients of its prestigious Bladder Cancer Research Innovation Award. This is the first year ever in which two awards have been granted. This year’s awardees are Weiguo Cui, Ph.D., an Associate Investigator at the Versiti Blood Research Institute and an Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and John K. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., an Assistant Professor in the Human Biology Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. These awards are part of the more than $6 million in research grants that BCAN has awarded to end this disease that impacts the more than 600,000 people in the United States who are living with it.
While incidence rates of other cancers have been declining, bladder cancer cases are expected to climb by 3% in 2021, highlighting the critical need for new and effective treatments for the more than 83,000 people who will be diagnosed with it this year. BCAN’s Bladder Cancer Research Innovation Awards, each funded at $300,000 for two years, support exceptionally novel and creative projects with tremendous potential to produce breakthroughs in bladder cancer research to improve patient outcomes.
“BCAN is pleased to fund Dr. Cui’s and Dr. Lee’s novel projects and these research grants will help advance the type of high risk, high reward bladder cancer research that can help patients and those who love them,” said Andrea Maddox Smith, CEO of the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network. "We also are deeply grateful for the generosity of our donors who enabled us to offer two $300,000 Research Innovation Awards for the first time ever.”
Dr. Cui’s project involves discovering what factors lead to T cell exhaustion and finding ways to reverse it. One of his proposed technologies is designed to convert exhausted T cells into energized T cells to attack and treat bladder cancer, preventing cancer recurrence and metastasis. Dr. Cui said, “We are very grateful for the generous support from BCAN which will propel our research forward to find new treatment opportunities for bladder cancer patients.”
Dr. Lee’s project is designed to develop a better understanding of variant bladder cancers, which are often more aggressive and deadly than conventional bladder cancers. Its goal is to inform new and effective treatment strategies for those suffering from these variant cancers. Dr. Lee said, “The BCAN Research Innovation Award will provide timely and important support to our work to better understand variant bladder cancers. Little is known about this group of diseases which are often more lethal than conventional bladder cancers. Our hope is that these studies will provide new insights into how variant cancers arise and are maintained with the goal of informing more effective treatments for patients.”
Drs. Cui and Lee are recognized experts in their fields. Among other disciplines, Dr. Cui’s expertise is in effector and memory T cell differentiation, and Dr. Lee’s is in molecular targets that could form the basis of immunotherapy-based therapeutic strategies.
The Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network’s (BCAN’s) mission is to increase public awareness about bladder cancer, advance bladder cancer research and provide educational and support services for the bladder cancer community.
