Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Edward P. Evans Center for MDS at Dana-Farber aims create a community of researchers who are committed to advancing translational research in MDS.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, made the following post on LinkedIn:

“It was October 2022 in Nashville, and the lineup was set. The biggest names from around the world would be on stage – not for a music festival, but for the annual Edward P. Evans Foundation for Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) Summit.

For Lachelle D. Weeks, MD, PhD, a young investigator studying MDS and an Evans Foundation Fellow, it might as well have been a festival. She’d finally have the chance to meet the researchers she’d been admiring from afar.

Weeks’ chance to learn and build relationships stemmed from the creation of the Edward P. Evans Center for MDS at Dana-Farber, which was made possible by a gift from the Edward P. Evans Foundation four years ago. The Center aims create a community of researchers who are committed to advancing translational research in MDS.

“The Center is creating an MDS-focused research ecosystem,” says R. Coleman Lindsley, MD, PhD, director of the Center and inaugural Edward P. Evans Investigator. “We’re supporting junior faculty, funding innovative research, and building out resources that support MDS research.”

MDS are a group of diseases in which the bone marrow makes too few healthy blood cells. Patients with MDS often suffer from debilitating fatigue and may require regular blood transfusions. Some patients with MDS are also at risk for infection or bleeding, and at least 20% of patients with MDS will develop acute myeloid leukemia.

Dana-Farber investigators have a long track record of major advances in MDS, including leadership of a clinical trial that led to Food and Drug Administration approval of decitabine; discovery of genetic predictors of outcomes in MDS; and development of the first MDS-specific quality-of-life assessment.

Since the establishment of the Center, MDS research has continued to expand. Since its inception, faculty affiliated with the Center have filed three patents and published dozens of publications.

In 2021, the Center established a pilot grant program to support innovative research projects in MDS. The grants are one-year $100K awards for early-stage research on questions of direct relevance to MDS.

Early-stage science is often risky and harder to fund because there is no evidence yet that the new idea will be productive. Evans Center pilot grant funding provides an opportunity for young investigators to pursue an idea and gather the data they need to secure a larger research grant.

So far, the Center has awarded ten pilot grants. Some of the investigators who have received these grants were young investigators who have since been promoted to permanent faculty positions.

The Center has also funded two Evans Center Fellows. Rahul Vedula, MD, was the first fellow, from 2020 to 2022. His research uncovered evidence that could lead to new therapeutic targets for MDS and new strategies for preventing disease progression.

The current fellow, Weeks, has developed a risk stratification algorithm for clonal hematopoiesis, a precursor to MDS.”

Source: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/LinkedIn

Since its founding in 1947, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts provides adults and children with cancer with the best treatment available today while developing tomorrow’s cures through cutting-edge research.  Dana-Farber researchers have contributed to the development of 35 of 75 cancer drugs recently approved by the FDA for use in cancer patients. Providing advanced training in cancer treatment and research for an international faculty, the Institute conducts community-based programs in cancer prevention, detection, and control throughout New England.