December 13, 2024

The Cancer Research Foundation is pleased to announce four new Fletcher Scholars in 2024, a set of grants that represent the greatest impact the original bequest from Eugene and Dorothy Fletcher has created yet. In 1989, the Cancer Research Foundation received a gift from the Fletcher’s estate; the only requirement was that the income from their gift be used to fund cancer research. Since that time, the endowment created by that important gift has allowed the Cancer Research Foundation to invest in 22 talented and driven cancer researchers querying all sorts of cancer science. This year, the CRF is so pleased to announce four more esteemed scientists to add to that list: Xavier Keutgen, MD, Sean Pitroda, MD, Alexander J. Ruthenburg, PhD, and Sheila Stewart, PhD, MD.

Dr. Pitroda and Dr. Keutgen are both former Cancer Research Foundation Young Investigator Award winners. Dr. Pitroda’s work focuses on how metastatic cancer blocks the immune system; his lab recently discovered that metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) blocks the deletion of introns, noncoding DNA sequences that are deleted as RNA is created, and that this interruption may allow the mCRC to evade the immune system. Until now, introns were considered irrelevant pieces of information, but Dr. Pitroda will find out whether compromised intron deletion might be a target for making immune therapies significantly more effective in treating metastatic cancer.

Dr. Keutgen will build on his recent Young Investigator Award related to designing theranostic pairs of radioactive isotopes to locate and treat neuroendocrine tumors. With his Fletcher Award Dr. Keutgen will investigate a promising pair of radioisotopes developed off the same element and will further test if he can amplify the effect of this pair with an already established radiosensitizing agent called Fulvestrant. Dr. Stewart, one of the scientists pivotal to establishing the Cancer Research Foundation’s long and successful funding relationship with the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University in St. Louis, will build on her work in immunology and breast cancer to leverage the recent developments in mRNA vaccines and investigate her hypothesis that a particular protein and its effect on dendric cells might unlock the ability to mount a better immune response to metastatic breast cancer.

This will be the Cancer Research Foundations first opportunity to directly support the work of both Dr. Stewart and Dr. Ruthenburg. Dr. Ruthenburg’s research is focused on structural biology; with this award, he hopes to fully define how a particular protein complex impacts the development of leukemia. Up to this point, several labs have asserted a particular protein as the critical factor, but Dr. Ruthenburg thinks the important point of contact might depend on a completely different complex, indicating a whole new target for therapeutics.

All four of these projects will be supported by $100,000 from the endowment created by Dorothy and Eugene’s original gift and all have the possibility of uncovering whole new ways of describing and attacking cancer. Since 1989, the Cancer Research Foundation has named Fletcher Scholars as a way to allow established and mid-career cancer researchers with an opportunity to pursue novel ideas and innovative hypotheses. We believe that these four scientists are a perfect example of how greatly a gift like the one the CRF received from Dorothy and Eugene 35 years ago can continue to have such an outsized effect on cancer discovery.

The 2024 Cancer Research Foundation Fletcher Scholars:

Xavier Keutgen, MD
Associate Professor, Department of Surgery
University of Chicago
43/47Scandium-DOTATATE: A Next-Generation Theranostics Pair to Diagnose and Treat Neuroendocrine Tumors by Image-Guided Assessment

Sean Pitroda, MD
Associate Professor, Radiation and Cellular Oncology
University of Chicago
Immune Suppression Through Intron Retention by Oncogenic SRSF10

Alexander Ruthenburg, PhD
Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology
University of Chicago
Redefining the Role of RNA Binding by the MLL1 (KMT2A) Complex in Leukemia

Sheila Stewart, PhD
Professor/Vice Chair Director, Department of Cell Biology & Physiology
Washington University in St. Louis
Inhibition of the p38MAPK Pathway to Increase Vaccine Responses in Breast Cancer