UVA Cancer Center

08/02/2025

Cara Hanby, BS, CCRP, Senior Protocol Development Specialist with UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Protocol Development Team (pictured left center), has been named a 2025 Hoos Research Champion!🏆

The Hoos Research Champion Awards were launched this year to celebrate team members whose dedication, expertise, and teamwork enhance the culture of research excellence at UVA. Hanby was recognized for her leadership, passion and positivity, especially during complex tasks, like helping expand clinical trials led by UVACCC providers and faculty.

“Cara exemplifies leadership. Her unwavering commitment to the mission and values of UVA Health, combined with her depth and breadth of knowledge in the clinical trial space, are just a few of the traits that set her apart. She doesn’t shy away from a challenge and always maintains a positive outlook as she works towards developing solutions for some of our most complex clinical trials and workflow challenges,” said Kim Bullock, PhD, Associate Professor of Surgery and the Cancer Center’s Director of Protocol Development.

Karen Ballen, MD, Division Chief for Hematology/Oncology and Medical Director of Stem Cell Transplant, added that Cara “has a can-do attitude and is a great team player. She trains physicians and research staff and is always positive and helpful. The SOM and Cancer Center are fortunate to have her.”

🎉Congratulations, Cara!🎉

To read more about Cara and the other 2025 Hoos Research Champions, click here: https://news.med.virginia.edu/research/celebrating-our-first-hoos-research-champions/

08/01/2025

Public health scientist Becca Krukowski, PhD, is working to reduce cancer risk in rural communities by making online weight-loss programs more personal.

Led in collaboration with the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Columbia and supported by a $3.37 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant, the iREACH Rural study is evaluating a 24-week online weight-loss program that goes beyond core online content by evaluating expert feedback on dietary, physical activity, weight self-monitoring, weekly peer support group video sessions and individual coaching calls.

The iREACH Rural research team recently joined with the HEART-NET Primary Care research network affiliated with UAB Heersink School of Medicine, UAMS - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the University of Mississippi Medical Center, through the National Institutes of Health’s CARE for Health program. This partnership seeks to improve access to clinical research in rural communities through primary care clinics and access to weight management programs, which are often limited in rural areas.

“Weight loss of as little as 5 to 7 percent can reduce obesity-associated co-morbidities,” Dr. Krukowski said. “While we can’t reach every community member in person, by finding the best combination of online content and ‘human touch’ aspects, we can optimize our efforts to reduce cancer risk.”

iREACH Rural is provided at no-cost and is recruiting participants nationwide through early December.

To see if you qualify for the iREACH Rural Study, click here: https://www.ireachstudy.org/

To learn more about Dr. Krukowski’s research, click here: https://med.virginia.edu/phs/2021/12/21/krukowski-rebecca/

To learn more about the iREACH Rural Study’s collaboration with the HEART-NET Primary Care research network, click here: https://bit.ly/44UYWnE

07/26/2025

Public health scholar Emma Mitchell, PhD, RN, CPH, has been selected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN)!

AAN fellowships are awarded annually to “thought leaders who advance the Academy’s mission of improving health and achieving health equity by impacting policy through nursing leadership, innovation, and science.”

Dr. Mitchell was selected for her significant and extensive contributions to health care in the U.S. and abroad. She seeks to help women at high risk of death from cervical cancer by developing new ways to improve education, screening, and treatment access, including smartphone tools.

Her 17-year research career includes a $1.2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to expand screening and enhance patient care in Nicaragua. The project uses mobile app technology to support screening for HPV – the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer – and trains providers to recognize and treat the disease.

Dr. Mitchell has also received funding from The Jefferson Trust to design training programs for nursing students at both UVA and Nicaragua’s Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University, preparing them for emergencies resulting from climate change.

She will be formally inducted at the AAN’s annual Health Policy Conference this fall in Washington, D.C.

Congratulations, Dr. Mitchell!

Click here to learn more about Dr. Mitchell and other UVA School of Nursing fellows: https://nursing.virginia.edu/news/windy-alonso-kim-elgin-emma-mitchell-faans-2025/

To learn more about Dr. Mitchell’s research, click here: https://nursing.virginia.edu/people/emm6z/

Emma Mitchell, UVA School of Nursing

07/25/2025

Congratulations to Harald Sontheimer, PhD, Chair of the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia’s Department of Neuroscience, and Michelle Monje, MD, PhD, of Stanford Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute - HHMI, recipients of the Max Planck Society Gertrude Reemtsma Foundation’s 2025 International Prize in Translational Neuroscience! 🧠🔬💊🏆

The pair was honored for work that has “fundamentally changed our understanding of brain tumors,” opening the door to new treatments.

Studying an aggressive type of tumors called gliomas, Drs. Sontheimer and Monje uncovered a cycle in which the normal electrical activity of the brain’s nerve cells, called neurons, promotes tumor growth. The tumor cells, in turn, stimulate neuron activity, further speeding the cancer’s spread.

Dr. Monje established that neuron activity affects glioma growth, and how the cells integrate into the brain’s circuitry to grow, spread and resist treatments.
Dr. Sontheimer discovered multiple ways that gliomas increase neuron activity, how they exploit neuron-like passageways to spread, and how the cancer cells’ release of neurotransmitter chemicals that promote tumor growth can also cause epileptic seizures.

Sontheimer said he was “humbled and honored” by the award. “We owe it to patients with this devastating disease to provide hope for innovative treatments,” he said.

The award includes a monetary prize of €60,000 – approximately $70,000 – to support their continued research in pursuit of targets for desperately needed new treatments.

To read more about Dr. Sontheimer and Monje’s glioma research, click here: https://www.mpg.de/24939670/international-prize-translational-neuroscience-2025

To learn more about Dr. Sontheimer’s research, click here: https://med.virginia.edu/neuroscience/faculty/primary-faculty/harald-sontheimer-ph-d/

To learn more about Dr. Monje’s research, click here: https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/michelle-monje-deisseroth

07/24/2025

🌟“The UVA Community Grant has allowed Hitting Cancer Below the Belt (HCB2) to triple their outreach and engagement across the Commonwealth.”— Melinda Conklin, HCB2

Now it's your turn.

UVA Cancer Center is awarding up to four community grants for 12-month, community-led projects that address the cancer burden through innovative local approaches. Letter of intent is due by July 31.

Here's what else Mindy had to say:

“Not only have the funds supported this growth, but the collaboration has allowed HCB2 to creatively develop and evolve the materials necessary to move people from awareness to action. HCB2 has directly reached and engaged hundreds of thousands of community members through their educational initiatives to help defeat colorectal cancer, and UVA Health has been a large part of this success.”

Learn more and apply: https://med.virginia.edu/community-outreach-engagement/supporting-research/uva-comprehensive-cancer-center-community-grants/

07/24/2025

Have an idea to reduce the cancer burden in your community?

UVA Cancer Center is awarding up to four community grants for 12-month, community-led projects that address the cancer burden through innovative local approaches.

📝 Letter of Intent due July 31

📌 Who can apply:
✔️ 501(c)(3) nonprofits or municipalities
✔️ Projects must serve UVA’s cancer catchment area
✔️ Must propose a new component

🔗Apply now: https://med.virginia.edu/community-outreach-engagement/supporting-research/uva-comprehensive-cancer-center-community-grants/

📣 Know an organization doing great work? Share this post!

07/22/2025

Getting ready to send your child off to college? Did you know that not all campuses are to***co-free? A school's to***co policy can make a big difference in a student's health and safety.

Tobacco-free campus policies have been shown to:
✅ reduce deadly secondhand smoke exposure
✅ prevent to***co use among college and university students
✅ help people who smoke end their dependence on to***co

In partnership with the University of Virginia Cancer Center and VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Virginia Department of Health is supporting schools statewide in going to***co-free.

Learn more about the work VDH is doing to help eliminate to***co use on college and university campuses https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/to***co-free-living/eliminate-to***co-use-virginia/

07/21/2025

Hope & Confidence, One Haircut at a Time 💙

We’re honored to share the incredible impact of our CareCuts Program which launched in January 2024. What started from patient feedback has blossomed into a compassionate wellness initiative, offering free salon services—haircuts, head shaving, wig styling—exclusively for UVA Cancer Center patients.

What makes CareCuts special:
•Two volunteer stylists from Charlottesville’s Moxie Hair Lounge give their time and talent.
•Sessions are held twice monthly, inside the Flourish boutique at Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center.
•CareCuts is about restoring identity, confidence, and emotional wellbeing during a challenging time.
•This initiative exemplifies UVA Health’s mission: transforming health and inspiring hope—not just through medicine, but through every human connection.

📅 Interested or know someone who could benefit? CareCuts sessions occur on the 1st & 3rd Wednesdays, 9 AM–2 PM. Appointments are free but required—call 434‑924‑9333 to schedule.

https://uvahealth.com/services/cancer-support-services/salon-styling

07/19/2025

Andrew Dudley, PhD, recently earned a $2.7 million R01 renewal award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue a 16-year project aimed at alleviating toxicity and side effects of cancer immunotherapy treatments.

Cancer-fighting immune cells enter a tumor through the blood vessels surrounding it. Some blood vessel abnormalities can hinder the immune system’s access to a tumor, causing treatments like immunotherapy to be less effective. In 2023, the Dudley lab discovered that they could reprogram the genes of tumor blood vessels to allow immune cells in, improving the effectiveness of immunotherapy treatments, and potentially reducing dosages required to stimulate immune cells against cancer.

In collaboration with Melanie Rutkowski, PhD, and Craig Slingluff, MD, Dr. Dudley aims to develop blood vessel-focused strategies that could go hand-in-hand with immunotherapy for longer-lasting, favorable treatment results with limited side effects.

Congratulations, Dr. Dudley!

To learn more about Dr. Dudley’s research, click here: https://bit.ly/3I3eONd

07/18/2025

Congratulations to Shannon Cartwright, a UVA Chemistry PhD candidate, who is the recipient of the Cancer Center’s annual Graduate Student Fellowship for Collaborative Drug Discovery Project! 🎉🔬

Administered by UVACCC’s Cancer Research Training and Education Core, the fellowship, which funds one year of the awardee's tuition, including a stipend, is awarded to a graduate student trainee conducting collaborative research to identify new small molecules that could be used in cancer treatments. Shannon is pursuing potential treatments for cervical cancer under the mentorship of Cancer Center researchers Kristin Anderson, PhD, and Jetze Tepe, PhD, and is a trainee in Dr. Tepe’s lab.

Cervical cancer can develop after prolonged infection with certain human papilloma viruses (HPV). Viral proteins made within the infected cells are used by the virus to send false signals to the immune system that the cells are healthy. This allows HPV infected cells to turn into cancer. With Dr. Tepe, Shannon developed unique chemical compounds designed to spur cells to discard these viral proteins faster so that they cannot be used to evade the body’s immune system.

Shannon and Dr. Anderson are now investigating how these new compounds impact the virus’s visibility to the immune system and how they can be used to improve the body’s natural defenses to combat cervical cancer.

Best of luck, Shannon and team!

To learn more about Dr. Tepe’s research, click here: https://as.virginia.edu/faculty-profile/jetze-j-tepe

To learn more about Dr. Anderson’s research, click here: https://med.virginia.edu/faculty/faculty-listing/abv9kn/

07/15/2025

⏰ Reminder: There’s still time to apply!

UVA Cancer Center is awarding up to four grants of up to $10,000 for community-led projects that tackle the cancer burden in local communities.

📌 Letter of Intent due July 31.

Apply today: https://med.virginia.edu/community-outreach-engagement/supporting-research/uva-comprehensive-cancer-center-community-grants/

07/14/2025

Stem cell transplants can be lifesaving for people with blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma. But patients who couldn't find a perfect match couldn't get a transplant because of the potential for graft-versus-host disease, a serious complication where the immune system attacks the transplanted cells.

A new UVA Cancer Center study, however, found that a treatment approach that prevents this complication. 80% of study participants were alive after a year, which is similar to the outcomes in patients who receive fully matched transplants.

🔬 Read more about the study: https://bit.ly/3IqzzCC