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Dana-Farber Awards Early Career Investigators ACS Grants for Innovative Cancer Research

Mu A, Giacomo Oliveira and Erin Parry

Sep 3, 2025, 13:35

Dana-Farber Awards Early Career Investigators ACS Grants for Innovative Cancer Research

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute shared on LinkedIn:

“The American Cancer Society (ACS) has awarded our Office for Faculty Development a three-year Institutional Research Grant to provide early career investigators with seed funding for innovative research that has the potential to identify new directions for cancer research. Three investigators will receive funding each year and will benefit from mentoring and connections with other ACS-funded researchers.

The 2025 winners – Mu A, instructor in Cancer Biology; Giacomo Oliveira, instructor in Medical Oncology; and Erin Parry, assistant professor in Medical Oncology – received one-year awards of $40,000 from ACS and $15,000 from Dana-Farber.

A will investigate how irisin – a hormone released by muscles during exercise – interacts with melanoma tumor cells. Her previous research suggests that irisin may be the key molecule linking exercise to slower melanoma growth.

She aims to better understand how irisin influences tumor growth and spread, as well as its impact on immune cell movement and signaling within melanoma tumors. This work could offer insights into new treatment approaches for melanoma and other cancers, including breast, colorectal, pancreatic, and ovarian.

Oliveira will explore the role of immune cells called T regulatory cells in melanoma. T regulatory cells control and dial down immune responses when needed. Oliveira suspects that tumors can exploit the capabilities of T regulatory cells to protect themselves against the immune system.

He will carry out plans for a series of studies that will determine how the cells are recruited and behave inside tumors. The work could help inform new ways to stop tumors from evading immunotherapies.

Parry will investigate the role of a gene in T cells, ZNF683, which has been linked to the effectiveness of immunotherapy across multiple cancer types.

Its activation may help T cells fight cancer, while its absence could drive them into an exhausted state, rendering them ineffective. To test this hypothesis, Parry has developed models to study how ZNF683 influences T-cell behavior – work that could uncover new opportunities to improve cancer immunotherapy.”

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