Victoria Bae-Jump, MD, PhD, to study “Preclinical and Clinical Investigations of the Impact of Obesity on Ovarian Cancer Pathogenesis," according to the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

 

Dr. Bae-Jump is an assistant professor of gynecologic oncology.

 

"Dr. Bae-Jump and her co-investigator, Liza Makowski, PhD, assistant professor of nutrition in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and UNC Lineberger faculty member, will study whether the metabolic and endocrine effects of obesity play a contributing role in the development of ovarian cancer, leading to biologically different cancers than those that arise in leaner women," according to an explanation of the grant posted to the Cancer Center's website.

 

"They will conduct research to define characteristics unique to obesity-driven ovarian cancers using pre-clinical models and will assess whether two novel chemotherapeutic agents (i.e. metformin and mTOR inhibitors) have improved efficacy among obese patients with this disease."

 

Other UNC collaborators are:

 

-- UNC Lineberger faculty members Neil Hayes, MD, MPH, Chuck Perou, PhD and Pei-Fen Kuan, PhD

-- Wei Jia, PhD, professor, department of nutrition, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

-- Xiuxia Du, PhD, assistant professor, department of bioinformatics & genomics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte