Amy Fowler, MD, PhD was recently awarded an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for her project, “Precision Imaging of Breast Cancer for Guiding Neoadjuvent Endocrine Therapy.” She was awarded a total of $3.05 million for a five-year term. Dr. Fowler and her team have two specific aims: to assess the efficacy of FFNP PET/MRI for predicting response to presurgical endocrine therapy and determine the quantitative reliability of FFNP breast PET/MRI. She added, “We are very excited and fortunate to have received this award.”
Dr. Fowler shared, “Tools to help physicians tailor treatments to match the biologic aggressiveness and drug sensitivity of each patient’s breast cancer are urgently needed to achieve precision medicine. The proposed research will lay the groundwork for translating a new functional imaging-based, non-invasive approach to assess early response to neoadjuvant endocrine therapy for patients with hormone receptor-positive primary breast cancer. A direct method of measuring functional endocrine sensitivity is relevant to the NIH’s mission and is expected to have a significant clinical impact by better-informing decisions for optimal, individualized therapy and ultimately by reducing breast cancer morbidity and mortality.”
Dr. Fowler credits many of her collaborators for their work on this project, including the following:
Roberta M. Strigel, MD, MS, FSBI
Lonie R. Salkowski, MD, MS, PhD, FACR
Kelley Salem, PhD
Aparna M. Mahajan, MD (Department of Pathology)
Stephanie M. McGregor, MD, PhD (Department of Pathology)
Lee G. Wilke, MD, FACS (Department of Surgery)
Kari B. Wisinski, MD (Department of Medicine)
Emmanuel Sampene, PhD (Department of Biostatistics)
Aimee Broman, MA (Department of Biostatistics)
We can’t wait to see the amazing progress and innovation this project leads to! Congratulations, Dr. Fowler!