2024

Victor Santoro Fernandes, PhD
University of Wisconsin-Madison

BTSI

The North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (NANETS) congratulates Victor Santoro Fernandes, PhD, Fellow at University of Wisconsin-Madison, as the 2024 recipient of NANETS’ Basic/Translational Science Investigator Award (BTSI). Dr. Fernandes was awarded this scholarship for his proposal: Modeling to Predict Benefit of PRRT in NET Patients.

Dr Fernandes is the inaugural recipient of the UW-Madison Department of Medical Physics’ postdoctoral entrepreneurial fellowship (PEF). This fellowship recognizes his potential for leading a technology development and translation endeavor and fosters the development Dr. Fernandes’ leadership and entrepreneurial skills. His PhD work, under the supervision of Dr. Robert Jeraj, focused on development, implementation, clinical validation, and translation of software to automate quantitative longitudinal image biomarker extraction and disease response assessment of solid cancers (e.g., melanoma and neuroendocrine tumors). Dr. Fernandes will be mentored by both Dr. Jeraj and Dr. Renuka Iyer, Professor of Oncology, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“Dr. Santoro-Fernandes is an outstanding scientist whose skills and commitment will help advance our understanding of NET therapy benefits and risks to the patients,” said Dr. Iyer. “I believe he will quickly rise to be a leader in defining and advancing high-quality investigations in the field of PRRT benefit prediction, bring a valuable new area of expertise we don’t have enough of in the NET community, and give back to his mentees and trainees.”

The successful completion of this research project will culminate in a much more robust and comprehensive modeling approach for predicting outcomes in NET patients receiving PRRT, thus holding significant potential for improving clinical patient management by avoiding ineffective treatment delivery and side effects. This work could result in a paradigm shift and allow its use in recently completed large trials like NETTER-1 and NETTER-2 and may also open the door for designing more personalized approach in trials for populations where this is currently not approved e.g.: lung NETs, retreatment, rare NETs by allowing better selection of patients likely to have high benefit predicted from this work as well as direct research efforts towards improving outcomes in those with low benefit scores.

The BTSI award is a two-year, $100,000 grant made possible through generous support from the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation (NETRF). The purpose of the BTSI Award is to encourage early career scientists in a fellowship or new faculty appointment to pursue research focused on neuroendocrine tumors.

“NETRF is proud to collaborate with NANETS to support Dr. Fernandes’ research”, said Elyse Gellerman, CEO of NETRF. “This project has the potential to ultimately improve treatment outcomes by better modeling and predicting which patients would benefit from PRRT.”

NANETS is grateful to NETRF, whose tremendous investment and support of this annual research grant have made a difference in the NET medical community and the patients we serve. The NANETS Scientific Review & Research Committee establishes the award criteria, reviews process, and independently selects the recipient.

Rohit Thummalapalli, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

NCIS

The North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (NANETS) congratulates Rohit Thummalapalli, MD, Assistant Attending L1 at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), New York, NY, as the 2024 recipient of NANETS Clinical Investigator Scholarship (NCIS). Dr. Thummalapalli was awarded this scholarship for his proposal: A pilot study of DLL3-directed immuno-PET imaging for patients with gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (GEP NENs).

As he transitions into his faculty position at MSKCC as a clinical investigator focused on GI cancers, Dr. Thummalapalli plans to leverage his prior experiences in clinical/translational research and clinical trial development to pursue this project. He plans to deeply dive into DLL3 targeting in GI neuroendocrine cancers as a faculty member, with this planned DLL3 PET study just one of multiple planned projects. He also plans to explore additional targetable cell surface markers and theranostic approaches in GI neuroendocrine cancers, as well as novel targeted therapy approaches in hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancers, leveraging his prior work in lung cancer.

Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes, his mentor, is a top New York City oncologist from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is the creator and host of the award-winning monthly podcast Cancer Straight Talk from MSKCC where she leans in and tackles the subject of cancer head on, in English and Spanish. She was also the 2009 recipient of the NANETS’ Young Investigator Grant.

“Through his transition from the thoracic to GI oncology space, Dr. Thummalapalli has recently compiled a very exciting set of preliminary data describing frequent expression of DLL3 in tumor samples of patients with gastrointestinal neuroendocrine cancers treated here at MSK,” said Dr. Reidy-Lagunes. “Given the expanding set of therapeutic agents being developed against DLL3 as described in Dr. Thummalapalli’s proposal, I am excited to work with him to further our understanding of DLL3 as therapeutic target in GEP NENs through a novel DLL3 PET imaging protocol as described extensively in his proposal.”

Dr. Thummalapalli has three aims: to determine feasibility of DLL3 PET imaging in GEP NENs, to evaluate correlation between DLL3 PET avidity and DLL3 IHC at the tumor level, and to assess DLL3 PET interlesional heterogeneity among WD GEP NETs, including correlation with loss of SSTR expression.

NANETS is pleased to support Dr. Thummalapalli’s work on this research proposal. The NCIS award is a one-year, $50,000 grant supported by an educational grant from Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation.

NANETS is grateful to Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, whose generous investment and support of this annual research grant will make a difference in the NET medical community and the patients we serve. The NANETS Scientific Review & Research Committee establishes the award criteria, reviews process, and independently selects the recipient.