“Dream Team” and new chair for Arteaga

Carlos Arteaga, M.D., professor of Medicine and Cancer Biology and director of the Breast Cancer Program at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, has been named to one of the international cancer research “Dream Teams” funded by Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), a charitable initiative of the Entertainment Industry Foundation designed to accelerate the pace of research to deliver new cancer treatments to patients.

Arteaga – along with VICC patient advocate and breast cancer survivor Patricia Lee – will be a part of a Dream Team initiative to discover approaches that will predict patients with breast, ovarian and uterine cancer who will respond to inhibitors of the PI3K pathway, which is mutated or abnormally activated in several human neoplasias. This work could help accelerate drug approvals and ultimately provide tests for personalized cancer treatment that can be incorporated into the standard of care.

Arteaga, director of the VICC Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in breast cancer, is one of six principal investigators named to this Dream Team, which will receive a $15 million grant to support the three-year research program.

“I am thrilled our Breast Cancer Research Program is part of this multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary effort, as it will allow us to be at the forefront and contribute to this exciting area of translational research,” Arteaga said.

Arteaga was also recently named the first recipient of the Donna S. Hall Chair in Breast Cancer at VICC.

The newly created chair – created to support the research efforts of an exceptional cancer investigator in the VICC breast cancer program – is funded through a $1.5 million gift from John and Donna Hall of Lexington, Ky.

The newly endowed chair will advance Arteaga’s research on the pathogenesis and molecular therapeutics of breast cancer. His work helped pave the way for development of numerous targeted drugs such as trastuzumab (Herceptin), cetuximab (Erbitux) and erlotinib (Tarceva), as well as other combinations currently in development.

“It is a wonderful privilege to be awarded this new chair,” said Arteaga. “John and Donna Hall have been steadfast supporters of the Cancer Center and this gift is another example of their commitment to research that may enhance the lives of cancer patients.”

– by Dagny Stuart