The NCIS award focuses on supporting a clinical project as well as the investigator's potential to make future clinical contributions to the neuroendocrine tumor field. Dr. Dasari is an ideal candidate and his research proposal and objectives show great potential. This award is in honor of Edda Gomez-Panzani, MD for her dedication and work on behalf of patients living with neuroendocrine tumors.

In discussing his plan, Dr. Dasari said, “Neuroendocrine tumors, NETs, are lethal when advanced with limited treatment options, in large part due to lack of adequate understanding of the underlying molecular aberrations. Overwhelming evidence point towards dysregulation of the retinoblastoma pathway (and thus cyclin dependent kinases, 4,6 CDK 4/6) in the majority of foregut NETs. Our goal in the current study is to demonstrate activity of CDK 4/6 inhibitors in foregut NETs by: 1) conducting pharmacodynamic (PD) and correlative studies on paired biopsies from a clinical trial of patients with foregut NETs treated with an oral CDK 4/6 inhibitor, 2) determining activity of mTOR inhibitor with an oral CDK 4/6 inhibitor in xenograft models of NETs."

IPSEN is proud to sponsor the continuation of Edda’s work on behalf of NET patients through this Clinical Investigator Scholarship. IPSEN Biopharmaceuticals supports this research scholarship in the form of a $50,000 grant directed to NANETS to administer. The NANETS Research Committee establishes the award criteria, reviews process, and independently selects the recipient.