Pennington Biomedical Research Center faculty members Steven B. Heymsfield, MD, and Justin C. Brown, PhD, are members of a team led by the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Weill Cornell Medicine and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that have secured $25 million to take on the challenge of cachexia, the debilitating wasting condition responsible for up to 30 percent of cancer deaths.
The funding comes from Cancer Grand Challenges, a global funding platform supported by Cancer Research UK and the US National Cancer Institute. Cancer Grand Challenges has brought together a community of diverse, global teams to think differently and take on some of cancer’s toughest challenges.
“Cachexia, the inexorable loss in body weight and muscle mass seen in many cancers, contributes to adverse outcomes. However, its underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Discovering causative mechanisms of cachexia may lead to treatments and preventions that improve the course of some common forms of cancer,” said Heymsfield, the Pennington lead investigator on the team, and professor and director of Pennington Biomedical’s Body Composition & Metabolism Laboratory. “Scientists are driven to discover the root causes of disease and being part of this team and the Cancer Grand Challenge project fulfills that dream.”
“Cancer Grand Challenges provides a unique opportunity to tackle complex issues like cachexia that would have been impossible before now. It’s a very exciting time to be in cancer research, and we’re excited to be part of this international team of researchers,” said Brown, assistant professor and director of Pennington Biomedical’s Cancer Metabolism Program.
The Cancer Cachexia Action Network (CANCAN) team unites clinicians, advocates, and scientists with expertise in cancer, metabolism, neuroendocrine function, immunology, and more, across 14 institutions in the U.S. and the U.K., aiming to build the world’s first virtual institute with a mission to solve cancer cachexia. The team is led by Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey’s Eileen White, Weill Cornell Medicine’s Marcus DaSilva Goncalves and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s Tobias Janowitz. Although cachexia is a major clinical problem, it is poorly understood and there are no effective therapies for people who experience it. The team plans to build a deep understanding of what causes cachexia and develop novel treatments to intervene – which could transform people’s quality of life and ultimately survival.
The CANCAN team is one of four new teams to receive Cancer Grand Challenges funding. The diverse, global teams will divide a total of $100 million to take on some of the toughest challenges in cancer research.
“Finding answers to the big questions in science requires the kind of innovative approach that Cancer Grand Challenges exemplifies. We are excited about the discoveries this cutting-edge research will produce, such as how inflammation affects appetite. The findings are expected to have important implications for treating cancer and the disease of obesity, which has been linked to more than a dozen deadly cancers,” said John Kirwan, PhD, professor and executive director of Pennington Biomedical.