The Florida Department of Health has awarded 10 grants to nine UF Health Cancer Center investigators. The innovative projects address some of the most prevalent and deadly cancers in the region the center serves and have the potential to make significant advances in the understanding of the molecular basis of cancer, as well as its prevention and treatment.
Learn more about the research projects below.
Live Like Bella Pediatric Cancer Research Initiative
The Live Like Bella Pediatric Cancer Research Initiative aims to advance progress toward curing pediatric cancer through grants awarded through a peer-reviewed, competitive process.
John Ligon, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Stem cell transplantation is routinely used to cure children with blood cancers. New methods are being used to enhance the immune system and provide donor cells to fight tumors directly while minimizing the attack of healthy tissues. This clinical study seeks to define the safety and potential efficacy of an innovative stem cell transplantation method for children, adolescents and young adults with aggressive solid tumors.
The team, which includes Jordan Milner, M.D., also aims to learn how freezing affects stem cell grafts after the removal of alpha/beta T cells. The hope is to eventually allow cryopreservation of grafts for patients who experience a delay in receiving stem cell transplantation, preventing them from losing a potential donor.
Paul Castillo-Caro, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics
One third of patients younger than 20 with acute myeloid leukemia will die within five years. A type of immunotherapy called CAR T therapy has not proved as effective in acute myeloid leukemia as it has in other blood cancers.
Jianping Huang, M.D. Ph.D., John Ligon, M.D., and Paul Castillo, M.D., have proposed the use of a novel, specially engineered CAR T cell called 8R-70CAR T in clinically relevant models. The goal is to advance it to early-phase clinical trials to treat acute myeloid leukemia. This project’s long-term goal is to identify a CAR T cell that can overcome the challenges posed by the acute myeloid leukemia microenvironment.
Zhipeng Li, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Ferroptosis is a regulated cell death pathway that is involved in cancer immunity. It can be targeted to get rid of drug-resistant cancer cells. Li has identified genes that protect neuroblastoma cells from this type of cell death. Depleting those genes will make cancer cells susceptible to ferroptosis.
In this project, Li and colleagues will use a combination of quantitative approaches (e.g., CRISPR screens, MALDI imaging), biochemical tools, advanced microscopy and cell models to investigate the function of those genes and the mechanisms that promote cancer resistance to ferroptosis. The goal is to develop new strategies to selectively target pediatric neuroblastoma with fewer side effects.
Nathan Seligson, Pharm.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacotherapy and Translational Research
Ewing sarcoma is a rare and aggressive pediatric cancer. More than 40% of patients with early-stage disease experience recurrence after standard front-line chemotherapy, with no effective second-line therapies available. Seligson’s lab has demonstrated that the gene CDKN2A creates a proliferative bottleneck in Ewing sarcoma, conferring resistance to chemotherapy.
Seligson is leading a project to investigate a novel chemotherapy resistance mechanism involving the tumor suppressor gene CDKN2A. This research aims to uncover actionable insights into Ewing sarcoma biology and lay the groundwork for personalized therapeutic strategies targeting treatment resistance.
James and Esther King Biomedical Research Program
The James and Esther King Biomedical Research Program supports research initiatives that address the health care problems of Floridians in the areas of tobacco-related cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke and pulmonary disease.
Daiqing Liao, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Physiology and Aging
Cancer cells often change the way they use fats, which helps them grow and spread. Elevated lipid supply can drive metabolic reprogramming in both tumor and immune cells, creating a microenvironment that supports cancer growth. Being overweight or eating a high-fat diet can increase the risk of cancer.
Liao’s project aims to understand how fat metabolism goes wrong in a type of aggressive breast cancer called triple-negative breast cancer. The researchers will explore whether blocking this process with certain drugs could be a new way to treat the disease.
Lizi Wu, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
Immunotherapy holds significant promise for treating non-small cell lung cancer, the most common type of lung cancer. However, only about 20% to 30% of patients with non-small cell lung cancer benefit from an immunotherapy treatment called immune checkpoint inhibitors, reflecting resistance in many tumors.
RNA nanoparticles, notable for their small size and ability to regulate immune processes, offer a groundbreaking method to reprogram immune responses and make tumors more sensitive to immunotherapy. This project aims to use RNA nanoparticles targeting specific tumor molecules to make tumors more responsive to immunotherapy. Researchers will test the RNA nanoparticles in mouse models to assess safety, efficacy and immunological impacts, setting the stage for future human clinical trials.
Maria Zajac-Kaye, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Physiology and Aging
The goal of this research proposal is to determine the mechanism of action of novel thymidylate synthase inhibitors identified in Zajac-Kaye’s laboratory and test a novel drug combination to increase survival of patients with pancreatic cancer. There are no effective systemic treatments for advanced pancreatic cancer, which is now projected to be the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States by 2030.
The researchers plan to study the mechanism of action of new thymidylate synthase inhibitors and test tumor inhibition in combination with KRASG12D inhibitors. This innovative targeting of thymidylate synthase and KRASG12D aims to provide a new effective strategy for patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma carrying the G12D mutation and will lay the groundwork to pursue an investigator-initiated clinical trial at UF.
William G. Bankhead and David Coley Cancer Research Program
The William G. Bankhead and David Coley Cancer Research Program works to advance progress towards cures for cancer through grants awarded through a peer-reviewed, competitive process.
Lizi Wu, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
This project investigates an aggressive type of lung cancer characterized by mutations in the LKB1 tumor suppressor gene. The researchers will focus on targeting a specific signaling pathway activated by LKB1 inactivation as a therapeutic target.
Researchers aim to gain a greater understanding of this pathway and evaluate targeted therapies that exploit this vulnerability, while exploring combinations with immunotherapies to enhance antitumor immunity. The team plans to generate critical preclinical data, paving the way for further clinical trials on LKB1-mutant lung cancer and possibly enhancing the effectiveness of current immunotherapies, thereby improving patient outcomes.
Michalina Janiszewska, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology
Glioblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor. The standard of care, a combination of chemotherapy and radiation, remains unchanged since 2005, yet it provides a survival benefit of only about four months.
Targeting the hypoxic adaptation of glioblastoma cells is key to preventing tumor relapse and to improve patient survival. This project combines expertise in brain tumor biology, chemistry and chemical biology, including expertise in designing small molecules that target messenger RNA, to optimize a new compound targeting hypoxia-inducible factor 2-alpha (HIF2-alpha).
The study, a collaboration with the lab of Matthew Disney, Ph.D., could lead to a new therapeutic strategy for glioblastoma. Since hypoxia is also linked to breast cancer and its metastasis, the initial study could pave the way to use this new class of compounds in other tumor types.
Mingyi Xie, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
This project aims to decipher dysregulated RNA interference in colorectal cancer through a graph-based artificial intelligence framework. The researchers plan to address a novel mechanism in RNA molecular biology, called target RNA-directed microRNA degradation, focused on early-stage colorectal cancer patients. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a group of small RNA molecules that are important for regulating gene expression by inhibiting the translation of mRNAs, which are frequently deregulated in cancer cells.
By combining innovative biochemical and computational approaches, the team is developing a framework to identify functional miRNA-target pairs that can lead to miRNA degradation in colorectal cancer patient samples with multi-level validation. The goal is to reveal a novel and essential layer of gene regulation by miRNA targets in cancer development.
