Dr. Susanna Greer: Advancing Cancer Research at the V Foundation | OncoInfluencers

Dr. Susanna Greer, Chief Scientific Officer of the V Foundation, joins Gevorg Tamamyan on OncoDaily‘s OncoInfluencers to discuss her impactful career and role in driving the foundation’s mission to defeat cancer. Dr. Greer highlights the foundation’s commitment to directing 100% of donations to groundbreaking research. She also introduces the “Women’s Scientist Innovation Award for Cancer Research,” supporting early-career female researchers.

Susanna F. Greer is the Chief Scientific Officer at the V Foundation. Before this role, Dr. Greer was a Senior Scientific Director at the American Cancer Society, where she led the Biochemistry and Immunology of Cancer Research Program. Greer’s work focuses on identifying crucial signaling pathways in the immune response to cancer and has led to significant discoveries in molecular immunology and new epigenetic targets.

Gevorg Tamamyan is the Editor-in-chief of OncoDaily, President-Elect of SIOP Asia Continental Branch and Pediatric Oncology East and Mediterranean (POEM) Group, and the CEO of the Immune Oncology Research Institute (IMMONC). He is the Chairman and Professor of the department of Haematology and Pediatric Oncology at Yerevan State Medical University. He is a Co-Founder and Board Member of the Armenian Association of Hematology and Oncology, City of Smile Charitable Foundation, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Cancer and Crisis, the Former President of the Harvard Club of Armenia.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Hello everyone and welcome back to OncoDaily. Today on OncoInfluencers we are privileged to host Dr. Susanna Greer, the Chief Scientific Officer of the V Foundation. Welcome to OncoDaily.
Thank you very much for being with us today. I’ll just make a brief introduction about yourself and then we’ll go ahead with the interview, okay? Sounds great.

Thank you. So Dr. Greer is, as I mentioned, is the Chief Scientific Officer of the V Foundation and in this role she’s a visionary ambassador of the V Foundation who works with the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Foundation to steer funding to the most promising research opportunities. An accomplished strategist, she develops and articulates priorities to enhance the V Foundation’s research portfolio, gifts, grants and sponsorships that advance the Foundation’s distinctive branch of cutting-edge and disruptive research.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Dr. Greer was a Senior Scientific Director at the American Cancer Society where she led the Biochemistry and Immunology of Cancer Research Program. Prior to American Cancer Society, Dr. Greer was recruited to Georgia State University as Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar where she directed the university-level molecular basis of disease program and was a tenured professor in the Department of Biology.

She has a very big bio so I’m not going to read all of them and will try to explore during the interview Dr. Greer’s career and the story of success. Just I’ll mention that she resides in Atlanta with her husband Chad and son Fletcher. She enjoys kayaking, hiking, is a peloton addict and is happiest in her garden. Thank you very much again for accepting our invitation.

I know how busy you are with your daily work and today with my first email I asked you, we are going to explore your story of success. What’s the key to success to Dr. Greer? And the first question is can you share some key milestones in your career that have shaped your journey as a scientist and leader in cancer research?

Susanna Greer: Thank you so much. Well first thank you for it was a really nice introduction and thanks for having me. I shared before we started I love OncoDaily.
It’s one of the first things I read and every morning when I’m kind of catching up on the news and it’s been a really great way to learn about others in the oncology community and so thank you for providing this really wonderful resource and certainly thank you for having me today.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Thank you.

Susanna Greer: So I think your question is about how just kind of how did I get started and what were my, you know, I think for many of us and it’s something I think about a lot, you know, I would never have begun in the scientific field if someone wouldn’t have reached out to me and seen that maybe I had some talents that while rough could have been accelerated. So I had a high school AP chemistry teacher. Her name was Susan Smith and she was fantastic and then when I went on to college I had a dean Dr. Barbara Mixon.

She was a physical chemist. I went on to get a degree in physical chemistry and you know she was just amazing and physical chemistry became a subject that I absolutely loved. I’m from a very small town in South Georgia.

I never had heard of physical chemistry and so yeah Dean Mixon was the one who helped me to even know physical chemistry existed and then I just fell in love with the subject matter that taught me about molecules and atoms and you know how matter behaves on this molecular level which became the foundation of my career.

So I think having these two people, they turned out to be women who loved science and took an interest in me, you know, that was the beginning of my love of science and I’ve tried to think about that a lot during my career of how I could help other people who I saw that inkling of maybe some talent and reach down and help them out as I was helped out.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Wonderful, thank you very much also for your kind words about the OncoDaily. This is really very inspiring to continue the work we are doing. As the chief scientific officer of the V Foundation, what are your primary responsibilities and how do you envision steering the foundation toward its goals?

Susanna Greer: Well I guess I’ll kind of lean on the what you previously asked me and go into that. So I as chief scientific officer I lean on my previous career and I think a lot about the people that I work with and work for all the time. So obviously I left academia, ran an academic lab and I had all the different positions of the people that we are trying to support at the V Foundation.

So of course I was a grad student, I was a postdoc, I was a professor. So at the V Foundation we are supporting individuals from the assistant professor and on up. So I think the one thing I would say it’s important that I’ve had those roles.

So my responsibility as chief scientific officer is to think really broadly about how we direct funding and how we are directing those funds to the most promising opportunities and investigators to move the bar in cancer. You can’t do that, you shouldn’t do that as a sole individual. So I work really closely with our scientific advisory committee who I would hold up against any scientific committee in the world.

They are absolutely outstanding and so with that scientific advisory committee we set our funding opportunities and priorities and then

Also I have one kind of role in the scientific space and in the scientific community and then I have another foot or role in the development space where I’m trying to help communicate, work with our marketing and development team to make sure that we are communicating all of the amazing work that our grantees are doing to help enhance the portfolio of gifts and grants and sponsorships that the V Foundation has in order we can leverage those gifts to have more of course worked on in the scientific space.

So I kind of have a leg in both of those spaces both in the development side and in the side of working with you know directing funds.

So always, always, always in everything I do you know my focus is on making sure that we are fostering the most innovative groundbreaking research and always kind of keeping a very sharp eye on our mission towards victory over cancer. When I think about what the V Foundation does our primary goal always is to or in my way of thinking about it is we fund very high risk, high reward research. So as chief scientific officer I’m either trying to communicate that, trying to raise money for that or I am trying to strategically communicate that to the scientific community and trying to make sure we reward those grants in the best way possible.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Yeah. Wonderful, wonderful. Don’t you miss academia?

Susanna Greer: That’s a great question. You know when I was a professor I had started my own company and so in some ways I already in the company that I had was Greer Consulting, Science Speakeasy. So I was already helping scientists when I had that company to leverage their ideas and their innovations to help raise money for their research.

So I had one foot out the door a little bit and in starting that company I realized that one thing that I was good at was helping scientists to take whatever their technology was no matter how complicated the language and to help that researcher to turn that really complicated technology and language into words that could anyone could understand. And I got as much joy quite frankly from helping that researcher as long as it was a researcher that I enjoyed working with and an idea I believed in. I got as much joy from that process as I did honestly in leveraging my own ideas and my own research.

So your question is complicated. Of course I miss in a very personal way running my own lab but I still get that same joy and that same excitement from helping the V Foundation grantees to move to the next level. And I feel like I have the opportunity to make a much bigger impact and a much broader way on cancer than I would have had I stayed in my own lab running my own research.

And honestly I knew if I shut down my lab that someone smarter than me would fill that space and that’s exactly what happened. So it was not lost on me that I would miss my grad students and postdocs coming in with their data. But now I mean we have we funded 1260 grantees at the V Foundation so I get to see all of their data all the time and I take immense joy in that and immense pride.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Wonderful. That’s really wonderful. But can you elaborate a bit more about the mission of the V Foundation and I mean what’s the difference between the V Foundation and other cancer research organizations or foundations?

Susanna Greer: That’s a great it’s a great question. So our mission is very simple. It’s to achieve victory over cancer.
So the V Foundation was funded in 1993 by ESPN and the late Jim Valvano. And Jim Valvano’s mission and message was very enduring and it was don’t give up don’t ever give up which I love. I think it applies to cancer patients of their families.

It certainly applies to researchers. And it is a guiding principle that drives the V Foundation to find the best and brightest cancer researchers and it drives myself and my colleagues to never give up on our mission. So we have a very comprehensive approach to funding research and so I think my answer to your question is threefold.

One I think that in some ways we are similar to other oncology organizations that fund oncology research. So we fund all cancers and we also fund across all patient journeys. Meaning from hopefully where you and I sit which is in cancer prevention.

We also fund in early detection. A lot of our funding sits in cancer treatment. We also fund in survivorship and palliative care.
And we also fund which is really important to our mission across the scientific journey. Meaning we fund in very developmental work. We fund translational research and we also fund clinical research.

So in that way we’re not that different from other large oncology funding you know non-profits. I think what makes us quite different is our two things and that would be how we fund the research and actually what we fund. So what sets us apart would be our giving pledge first of all and this is really one of the reasons that I came to the V Foundation.

So we have a commitment that 100% of funds go directly to research. It’s made impossible by our endowment. So we have an ability to ensure that our funds are used efficiently and effectively and this leads to you know these significant advancements in the field from you know all the way from prevention to palliative care.

It’s something that I take immense pride in. So I said I had one foot in the scientific space. Spent a lot of time talking to cancer center directors, to applicants.

I also spent a lot of time talking to donors and so being able to say without hesitation that contributions and donations whether you’re going to give a dollar to the V Foundation or millions go directly to groundbreaking research is not something that every organization can offer and we have I believe an unmatched impact in cancer research. So to me we’re the best investment that you can make if you’ve been impacted by cancer and and want to make an impact on cancer research. So we have a request for application process that we in our what’s called our flagship portfolio.

So four times a year we send out a request for application to designated cancer centers in the United States and their Canadian equivalents and so each of those cancer centers is allowed to nominate one individual. So these are some of the best cancer centers in the world. They then nominate their best researcher and each cancer center has a pretty comparable process for how they’re going to nominate their researcher for our request for applications and then those individuals compete against each other.

So in order to receive a V Foundation grant I mean these are absolutely some of the best researchers in the world. Our grants are reviewed by our scientific advisory committee. Each application is reviewed by three scientific experts and one biostatistician on our scientific advisory committee.

I of course play no role in this process. Our scientific advisory committee you can see them on our website. They are appointed by expertise.

They are also we take great pride in making sure they are diverse both in geography and race ethnicity and gender and so I think that my second point would be in in who we fund. So our grantees are absolutely outstanding. So not only if you donate to the V Foundation can you be assured that your dollars are going to go to research they’re also going to go to some of the best researchers in the world.

And those researchers have gone on to have an incredible impact in the oncology community. So I’ve been chief scientific officer for two years and in those two years have done a deep dive into the impact that our researchers have had and I’m really proud of what we can now communicate about our researchers.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Okay thank you. Could you highlight some of the key initiatives or programs at the V Foundation?

Susanna Greer: Absolutely. We have a fund that honors well one that I really like that stands out is the Stu Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund. For those that may not know Stuart Scott was a beloved ESPN sportscaster who sadly passed away in 2015 from cancer.

In his memory the V Foundation and ESPN established a fund to address cancer disparities in minority populations and to support researchers from underrepresented groups in science. This fund has awarded almost 16 million dollars to researchers and continues to make an impact especially with our newly announced partnership with the Dolphins Cancer Challenge which will focus on cancer disparities in South Florida. There’s another fund the Dick Vitale Fund I’d love to mention.

It’s another initiative that is making a tremendous impact. Dick Vitale is a sportscaster who has personally beat cancer and is currently battling cancer again. His own personal battles with cancer inspired him to be a champion for pediatric research cancer efforts and this fund not only works to improve and accelerate treatments for children with cancer but also celebrates childhood cancer survivors at an annual gala.

The V Foundation has awarded over 84 million in pediatric cancer research grants and I mean we’re incredibly fortunate at the V Foundation to have people like Dick Vitale who feel as passionate about our mission as we do.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you very much for all these efforts. Could you share an example of a particularly transformative project that was made possible by the V Foundation support?

Susanna Greer: Absolutely. A project that is near and dear to my heart is a grant of her own. It is one of our requests for applications in our flagship program called the Women’s Scientist Innovation Award for Cancer Research.

This initiative was created to address the gender disparities in cancer research by funding early career female researchers. This program not only advances cancer research but it also helps to ensure that women scientists can continue their vital work and I think it’s really important because it brings diverse perspectives and expertise to the field. In fact we just announced the second class of grantees for this initiative.

We awarded over 10 million dollars for the second class of grantees and I can’t wait to see the innovative research findings from this year’s class.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Nice. So in what ways the V Foundation ensure that its research funding is aligned with the most urgent needs in cancer treatment and prevention?

Susanna Greer: I think that’s a great question. I rely on the Scientific Advisory Committee in two ways in this space. The first is that we do identify critical research areas that require immediate attention.
For example this year we focused on colorectal cancer due to its rising incidence in young adults. This is more in an educational space. We highlighted the emphasis on colorectal cancer at several of our signature events because we wanted to educate our donors about these pressing issues and direct resources to where they were needed most.

The other way I think more globally that the V Foundation tries to ensure that our funding is aligned with urgent needs in treatment and prevention is that I rely on the individuals who are on the front lines. So I don’t run a research lab anymore, but the people who do are the individuals who are submitting grants. So we rely on individuals who are running research labs, individuals who are treating cancer patients, and our clinician scientists.

They’re the ones who are being nominated by their cancer centers and they’re the ones who are seeing the needs in the cancer community, identifying the biggest challenges. They’re the ones that are being nominated by their cancer centers. They are the ones that are being reviewed by the Scientific Advisory Committee and those are the grants that rise to the top.
So I think in that way the V Foundation is ensuring that our funding is aligned with what are the biggest challenges in the field and how are they being met by the absolute best researchers who can meet these challenges.

Gevorg Tamamyan: I’m talking about the challenges. What are the biggest challenges you face in your role and how do you overcome them to ensure the Foundation’s objectives are met?

Susanna Greer: You know, I think I really appreciated this question because it did make me think a little bit. I think for most non-profits, especially in the oncology space, one challenge is mission drift. Cancer patients have overwhelming needs.
So one of the challenges that I face is a good one and that is that I have an amazing group of people who come to me with lots of great ideas.

So one of my challenges is helping our organization to stay very focused on the mission that Jim Valvano set forth, which was that we are primarily, we are not primarily, we are a research funding organization. So I rely on a outstanding scientific advisory committee to help me be a great sounding board.

I rely on an amazing board that we have to be a great sounding board. So I think when I think about the challenges we have is that no one organization can meet all the needs of the cancer community. That’s my biggest challenge probably.
Lots of people know the V Foundation is really great at what we do. The way that I meet, and so they come to us with great ideas of could we do this, could we do that? And the answer is absolutely yes.

We could do lots of different things, but anytime we decide to do something else, it may take away from what I think that we are the best at, which quite frankly is funding the most outstanding research in cancer. So how do I meet that problem? How do I meet that challenge?

Is that I rely on an outstanding scientific advisory committee, an outstanding board, and quite frankly, an outstanding group of colleagues to be a good sounding board to say, what about this idea? What about that? Are we going to move forward with this?
We talk about it and then we come to a conclusion and it helps us to stay on the straight and narrow to really think about what does this do to help us accomplish our mission? And I think that’s great advice for any team when you’re faced with a good suggestion, good challenge. Does this help to move our mission forward?

And you think about it and then you move on. So yeah, good challenges to have, but mission drift is definitely a challenge for any foundation.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Balancing a high impact career with personal interests can be challenging, right? How do your personal hobbies and interests like gardening and kayaking influence your professional life and vice versa?

Susanna Greer: Well, I’d say I wish I had more time for them, but you know, anyone who has ever planted a seed, first of all, believes in a miracle, but also gardening is one of my great loves and it definitely helps you to slow down. There’s been some great papers that have come out recently on scientists needing more time to think. And I think that anything that helps you to slow down, think a little bit like gardening.

I love to exercise, like kayaking, just being still with myself is really important. And there’s a lot to be learned in the time that it takes to nurture a plant and let it grow. I mean, the similarities to research are obvious, right?

Planting the seed of an idea and growing that into a research project or planting the seed into a graduate student and then helping that graduate student to formulate ideas over time and really nurturing that student to grow, right? These are all things that have commonalities. I took up yoga about a year ago and I hated it in the beginning because I was really terrible at it.

I don’t like to not be good at things. And I think that, but now I really love it because it’s hard. It’s challenging.
There’s some people in my yoga class that can stand on their head. And if I tried to stand on my head, that would be my last day probably on this planet because it just would not turn out well, but I can still try. And I think that’s a lot about what science is about is just try.

And that’s what the V Foundation does, right? We go for those really high risk, high reward projects, and they don’t all work out, right? Sometimes it’s Dr. Greer trying to stand on her head and it’s a huge failure, but sometimes it’s that amazing plant that you take a chance on and it gives this incredible container garden or you get this great yoga pose or you actually are able to kayak down these rapids that you never thought you could do.

And yeah, I think there’s so many parallels and just taking your time, being thoughtful, being mindful and really going for something that is so hard and takes time and energy and effort. So yeah, there’s tons of parallels in gardening and in sports, of course, and in science.

Gevorg Tamamyan: What advice do you have for individuals who aspire to lead in the field of cancer research and make a lasting impact?

Susanna Greer: Well, I would say, I mean, we need you, first of all. Cancer is so hard and I think it’s an incredibly challenging career, but it is so worth it. The reason I became a cancer researcher is because I just didn’t understand it.
I’m a cancer, I’m an immunologist by training and I think anyone who thinks they understand the immune system is just wrong, right? I love thinking, I still, it amazes me that how much just in that space, since I got my PhD in immunology that we’ve learned.

And so I think my first piece of advice is lean in, right?
Lean into what is good and exciting and then keep leaning towards that. And don’t be afraid to go on a different path. I never ever in a thousand years would have predicted I would have the job I have now, but I just kept leaning towards things that felt good.

And the biggest, I think, mistake that I made early in my career was doing things that I was good at, but that didn’t necessarily bring me a ton of joy. I was always really good at research, really good at writing grants, but I also love doing what I do now, which is leading a team, helping other scientists to really elevate their research. And it took me kind of setting aside the competitive part of Susanna to realize that I don’t have to run a research lab to really contribute to science in big ways.

And I think taking that piece of me away was probably the biggest groundbreaking part of my career. So there’ve been some really hard times, right? I can remember sitting on the floor of my brand new lab and just crying because I didn’t know how to assemble a tissue culture hood and it was just in pieces.

We all had those days. I remember one of my first days when I was at the American Cancer Society, I was at the top of my career when I left academia and I got to the American Cancer Society and I didn’t know how to find the staplers or where they kept the office supplies. And so that’s just kind of how it is in the career path of a scientist is you get to the top and you go to the bottom again.

So I think you have to just be okay with those successes and then be ready to go right down to the bottom and just learn. But yeah, we need you. We need those bright minds.
Cancer is really hard. So all those moments taught me to be resilient, taught me to embrace challenge and I really love that. I have to be busy to be happy.

I really need to be challenged and the best part, the absolute best part of my job now are the people I work with full stop. Both my colleagues at the V Foundation, the board that we have, our scientific advisory committee and our grantees, the cancer centers. I mean that there is no better job.

I have the best job on the planet. So when I’m ready to step down, you can come get my job.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Wonderful. What’s the key to your success?

Susanna Greer: Oh, gracious. You know, I do think I am a pretty transparent leader. I learned I had an amazing postdoctoral advisor.

Her name is Dr. Jenny Ting. She’s still the smartest person I’ve ever met. And she was very clear about her expectations for the fellows in her lab for around the resources that we had in the lab.

She gave very clear feedback and I’ve tried to mimic that as I was a PI and then became a leader outside the academic space. So I think openly communicating with my team, specifically when things aren’t great, like when there are challenges, I think becomes really important. It fosters professional growth in team members and helps everybody to feel like they’re included.

I want my teams to understand the rationale behind decisions, to help them feel empowered and know that we’re an open team and that everyone is mutually supportive. I think if everyone feels valued on a team, that we have shared objectives, it’s absolutely key. So yeah, I think being transparent as a leader is super important.

Gevorg Tamamyan: What are your top three books?

Susanna Greer: Oh gosh, this is a hard question. My mom was an English teacher, so I’m afraid she’s going to read this interview and judge me. All right.

I really loved The Secret Garden as a kid. It’s probably not a huge shocker by Frances Burnett. I mean, maybe it made me love gardening, but it’s this amazing story about the magic of a garden and how it can restore you.
So it’s a beautiful book if you’ve never read it. Let’s see a second one. Um, I love Little Women.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. That’s a great book. That book has kind of a cool story behind it, if you know much about that.

You know, it highlights the lives of these four women. And the reason I’m thinking about that book is because it’s actually based, I mean, I don’t think it’s a big secret that it’s actually based on the life of the author. And it’s kind of a cool story because I think from what I’ve read, you know, of course, read that book as a child.

I remember he read it probably 10 times, but the, her editor wanted her to write just kind of like a love story. And she didn’t, she actually wrote about hard topics, about love and war. And like, it’s not a girl’s book.
It has real themes in it. It’s a beautiful story. After that, my favorite book is kind of whatever I’m reading now.

And actually I just reread Educated. I don’t know if you’ve read that book. It’s a great book.
So I just took my only son to college, which was hard. I just actually two days ago, took him to the University of Georgia and left him, my baby, my 18 year old baby. He’ll be fine.

Y’all don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine too, probably. And so Educated by Tara Westover.
And that is an amazing book. And it’s about, it’s a memoir and it’s about growing up in Idaho, I think, in this crazy abusive family. And it’s just this story of resilience and the power of education.

And I wanted to read that before my son went to college to remind me how incredibly lucky he is to be able to pursue education and to have this amazing opportunity to go to college. So that is a great book. But yeah, I just, I kind of love, I don’t know, whatever I’m reading now.

So we’ll see what my next favorite book is. But that, I just finished that. So do you have something I should read?
I just finished it. So I need it.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Right now I have several books on my table. One I just started rereading. It’s the Introduction to Global Health, which has the stories of the global health challenges.
I’m trying to remember the author of the book, but there is a foreword by Paul Farmer. And I was just reading the chapter about the AIDS epidemic and how these challenges were overcome. So this is a really a great book, which I was reading just a few days ago.

Susanna Greer: All right, I jotted it down.

Gevorg Tamamyan: I mean, usually I read several books, just at the same time. But this one, it was just on the table.

Susanna Greer: One of those, I can’t do that.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Yeah. And I started reading recently also some of the books I was reading during the childhood. I love this, the history books.

Susanna Greer: Yeah, I loved all of the, I just, yeah, when I was looking back at the books that my son, I had read to my son when he was little. So I would come up with those too. But yeah, recently, yeah, I would say Little Women.
That’s definitely a top one and Secret Garden. Yeah, I’m going to stick with those as being my favorites.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Yeah, those are great books. Wonderful. The last question, who should we interview next?

Susanna Greer: Hmm, oh my gosh. Okay, that’s really hard. I have 1260 favorite humans of the V Foundation grantees with who I would like you to interview all of them.

So I will say, okay, so there’s a really warm space in my heart for the V Foundation Scientific Advisory Committee. So I’m going to offer the chair. So the chair is Dr. Nancy Davidson. She’s at the Hutch. She’s a world-renowned breast cancer researcher. And I think hearing from her, I mean, so breast cancer is of course a huge challenge.

It’s also a place where we have made enormous strides in how we approach this disease. Dr. Davidson is an amazing human, on top of being an amazing oncologist. And it really impresses me when people of her caliber decide to give up their time, energy, and effort to things like the V Foundation, because of course our Scientific Advisory Committee donates their time, energy, and effort to us.

They review 12 grants each for each of our requests for applications. We have four of them. So they’re reviewing 30, well, they are reviewing between 36 and 48 grants a year for us.
And then, of course, participate in the calls themselves, which are at least six hours long. That’s a lot of time. And then they come to our, we have a strategy session that is in person.

It’s an enormous amount of time to volunteer for an organization. So I am honored by her time, energy, and service. So I would, yeah, I think she’d be a great person for you to talk to, either related to the V Foundation or not.
She’s an amazing human and has given a lot to our organization. I can give you one or two more if you like.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Yeah, of course, of course.

Susanna Greer: I mean, so I am an immunologist. So Evan Weber, Dr. Evan Weber, he’s at Penn. And he had a really cool Nature paper out not too long ago around FOX1 and CAR T-cells.
I would look at Evan. And then I’m going to give you two more. Let me see.

I had a couple pulled up that I really liked recently. I mean, these folks. Okay, here’s one.
I want you to think about Dr. Jamie Spangler at Hopkins, Jamie Spangler. She had a cell paper that I absolutely loved a few weeks ago. Really cool paper on antibodies, looking at downregulation of PD-L1.

And then I’m going to give you one not at all related to my field, just a paper that I loved and an individual who I think is just blowing it out of the water. Find this one. Okay.
Oh, my goodness. Okay. Francisco Sanchez Rivera.
He’s at MIT. And just doing some amazing things on prime editing sensor libraries. Yeah.

Three solid recommendations there. But again, I got 1,257 others. I mean, our grantees are truly, you didn’t ask for this, but I’m going to tell you, we funded them, of our 1,260 grantees, they have, we funded right now, I mean, and obviously, these numbers change by the day.

But last time I looked, 5,500 grants. That was as of this morning. And that’s to a total of, as of this morning, $353 million and some change.

So those grantees have published over 90,000 publications. And then they have leveraged that $353 million to $19.5 billion in additional follow-on funding and an additional 5,500 grants. It’s incredible.
And then additional, they’ve participated in over a thousand clinical trials. So when I tell you we fund the best, I’m not kidding. We obviously leave a lot of good grants.

My mission is end cancer. So when I tell you my biggest challenge is mission drift, it’s because we do leave a lot of really amazing research on the table, but I have, my goal is to make every dollar go as far as it can. And if you give me a dollar for research, I’m going to try to invest it in the best research I can and to do the most and best with it that I can.

So that’s probably the biggest challenge I have is we have to make some really hard decisions. There’s never enough, never enough money, but we’re doing, I think, really amazing work with what we have. So I’m very proud, very proud.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Before we close, and by the way, I found the name of the book. It’s the Introduction to Global Health Delivery by Julia Mukherjee. And it’s about the equity, human rights, and global health.
So why you are only focused in the United States and Canada, and why you are not going beyond?

Susanna Greer: That’s a great question. I would say that if we, that has been posed to us before. Again, it’s one of those hard questions we get, right?

If we were able to, so because I ran a research lab, I spend a lot of time thinking about, I don’t want applicants to waste their time applying for our grants, right? So I spend a lot of time thinking about pay lines. So I want to make sure that our pay lines are high enough because the caliber of researchers that are applying for our grants are truly outstanding.

So I want to make sure our pay lines are high enough that people are not wasting their time. Our pay lines are going to be high. We’re not going to mess around with 6%, 8%, 10% pay lines.
So until I can get my pay lines high enough, we can’t move beyond where we are now. Beyond that, but I will say, so that is maybe not the best answer to your question, but it is an answer, right? If we can’t fund all the outstanding research in North America, I can’t justify moving beyond the confines.

There are certainly amazing research that happens all over this world. My second answer, so I think that that’s probably where I sit right now. I will say that the research that happens here benefits people everywhere, right?
As you know, the research that happens in your country is benefiting me and my family, right? Yeah, of course. Yeah, the benefit of cancer is international.

Yeah, science is international. So I think the goal of having a global funding initiative is certainly not lost on me, but right now, maybe one day, maybe one day.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Thank you very much, Susanna, for the outstanding interview. It’s very motivational, and I’m sure our auditorium is going to love it. Thank you so much.

Susanna Greer: Well, thank you for having me. It’s been my delight, and I’m looking forward to all the wonderful things that we can do together as a research community. We certainly have big challenges, but also big opportunities ahead.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Wonderful. Thank you.