Research Grants Program
Periodically, the TMMC solicits Request for Applications (RFAs) to fund pilot projects focused on specific areas of research that affect our melanoma patients. Announcements will be listed here and on the Abramson Cancer Center's Funding Opportunities page.
For questions related to the TMMC's Research Grants Program, please contact Ahron Flowers.
Brain Metastases Research
The TMMC funded Drs. Qing Chen, MD, PhD and Nduka Amankulor, MD to help understand the role of how steroid-treatment may reduce the therapeutic efficacy of BRAF and MEK inhibitors (BRAF-MEKi), the standard targeted therapy for BRAF mutant melanoma in the brain.
Dr. Chen is a basic scientist whose research program focuses on elucidating the mechanisms of brain metastasis and the brain microenvironment. She has developed many models to study melanoma, breast, and lung cancers.
Dr. Amankulor is a physician-scientist. His clinical practice focuses on primary and metastatic brain tumors, as well as spine, intraventricular and skull base tumors, and hydrocephalus. His research program focuses on mechanisms of immune dysfunction in glioblastoma and melanoma.
RNA Therapeutics
Working closely with the Institute for RNA Innovation and the Abramson Cancer Center, the TMMC is supporting two initiatives focused on harnessing the discoveries made at UPENN that made RNA a safe and effective therapeutic modality:
- a clinical trial using a personalized neoantigen RNA vaccine for melanoma (NCT05933577) that will be enrolling patients later in 2023.
- a novel high risk high reward project focused on using RNA to treat advanced melanoma is underway in laboratories at UPENN.