AACR Research Grants Support a Gastric Cancer Researcher to Stomach the Academic Career Trajectory
Receiving an AACR research grant can come at crucial moments for many scientists. For Eunyoung Choi, PhD, two AACR research grants provided critical boosts along her journey to become an associate professor, a role she currently holds at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). In 2017, Dr. Choi received the Debbie’s Dream Foundation-AACR Career Development Award for Gastric Cancer Research. Then, in 2023, she received the AACR-Debbie’s Dream Foundation Innovation and Discovery Grant. “I think these two awards are my career landmarks, and I would not have been successful if I had not received them,” Dr. Choi shared.
Dr. Choi received the 2017 Debbie’s Dream Foundation-AACR Career Development Award for Gastric Cancer Research while a research instructor at VUMC for her project titled “A novel metaplastic organoid system for studying gastric carcinogenesis.” Gastric cancer typically develops within a multistep carcinogenic process, however, as Dr. Choi commented, “the regulatory mechanisms of this process have been understudied compared to other gastrointestinal cancers, and the opportunity for early intervention is highly limited.”
These shortcomings motivated Dr. Choi to study the regulatory mechanisms of carcinogenic transition of pre-cancer cells into cancer cells. Her project established a novel 3D organoid culture model to study the early biological events that contribute to gastric cancer. Through this work, she identified dysplastic cells as key contributors for gastric adenocarcinoma development.
Dr. Choi was especially thankful to be eligible for this funding opportunity because, as she shared, “since I was not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, I did not have many opportunities to apply for career development awards.” Shortly after receiving this grant, Dr. Choi began a tenure track assistant professor position at VUMC and utilized the work of the grant as a foundation for more funding opportunities as an independent investigator.
In 2023, Dr. Choi received the AACR-Debbie’s Dream Foundation Innovation and Discovery Grant for her project, “Fatty acid desaturation as a novel druggable target for gastric cancer.” During that same year, she also became a tenured associate professor at VUMC. While the second project is ongoing, Dr. Choi stated that both grants “allowed me to pursue high-risk projects, which are often unwelcome ideas and not well-funded.” Moreover, she noted that her AACR-Debbie’s Dream Foundation-funded research “provided strong evidence as a proof of concept for targeting dysplastic stem cells in patients with high-risk pre-cancerous lesions.”
Beyond the scientific discoveries gained from these projects, these grants had other long-lasting effects on Dr. Choi’s career. For example, Dr. Choi received a National Cancer Institute (NCI) R37 award and an R01 funded by the NCI’s Program on the Origins of Gastroesophageal Cancers. Additionally, Dr. Choi and her colleagues at VUMC and Duke University received a Department of Defense Translational Team Science Award focused on developing therapies to prevent gastric cancer. Furthermore, Dr. Choi established partnerships with new collaborators at Seoul National University in South Korea.
When asked about her vision for the future of gastric cancer research, Dr. Choi shared that “a better understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms of the carcinogenic process in pre-cancerous lesions are critical for early detection and prevention for patients with high-risk pre-cancerous gastric lesions, like intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia.” Thanks to crucial support from the AACR-Debbie’s Dream Foundation program, Dr. Choi’s research is advancing our fundamental understanding of gastric cancer to help improve patient outcomes.