2012 Rangos Award Finalists

The John G. Rangos Award for Creativity in Cancer Discovery is awarded annually to John Hopkins trainees with new and innovative approaches to Metastatic Cancer Research and Treatment. Meet the Top Three Winners of the Inaugural Competition. "So each kind of gave a talk, and then there were a panel of judges that were all senior scientists or experts in the field and they could each ask questions, whatever they wanted to ask. And they definitely asked some really tough questions, which was, alone nerve wracking but also cool to see the perspective of people that were actually working in the field and were experts and really knew what they were talking about." "I'm very excited that I'm chosen because this is like, the first time I proposed something by myself, like from the scratch. It was a big encouragement to me, like some sort of approval that like I have the ability to propose an original hypothesis." "I was thrilled to be just one of the finalists alone to be selected out of a large group. Being able to present in front of such an amazing audience with distinguished faculty in Hurd Hall with all the history there, it was an amazing experience." "The actual competition was really exciting. It was a lot of fun. It was neat to get to see the other candidates' ideas and to all present them to an audience together. That was a really interesting experience." "I have an interest in the immune system. I got a PhD in Immunology and I was really interested in this idea because it is an interesting question. So why is testicular cancer curable? Well as you know, the Index Case was Lance Armstrong, when he had the metastatic testicular cancer that had gone to the brain and spread to other areas. And it was essentially curable, and many other cancers don't have that same type of prognosis. So, my idea was that the *** is actually surrounded by a blood-*** barrier, okay? It's a barrier that prevents the immune system from getting in there and accessing anything growing in the ***. So my thought was that, if a cancer's growing in the ***, it can be kind of protected by this barrier. However when it does spread, or if it metastasizes to other areas, that time it's no longer protected by that blood-*** barrier and that the immune system could then target it and then, kind of eradicate it from the rest of the body." "So usually in the body of every cell has the same DNA, the DNA you were born with, and there are very few exceptions. And these exceptions are in blood development and in germ cells. And these are the two types of cells in your body that lead to cancers that are very curable with standard therapy. So I thought that there might be a link between this DNA repair process and these special cells and sensitivity to chemotherapy treatment." "My idea was involved in transposons. So transposons are essentially a segment of DNA that is capable of jumping around in the genome so they actually cause different kinds of genetic disease in people. So my hypothesis is that these elements are actually over activated in *** or germ cell tumors, so because they are over activated they create so much mutation that it actually kills the genome cell." "We got to meet Mr. Rangos at a dinner after the Awards Ceremony and that was a really cool experience. He is really interested in Science, really interested in our ideas and really interested in generating creativity among young scientists which I think is really important and definitely not emphasized enough in the field today." "So Mr. Rangos is just an amazing person and really just need to thank him for his support of Sciences and Medicine and his philanthropy in supporting young people through his Award like this. And it's definitely something that i will remember for the rest of my career." "And I thought it was a fantastic experience. It was really great for me to take a step back from my own field and look into some literature from things that other people are doing in a completely different area. It was great experience and I would definitely recommend it to people for next year." Most metastatic cancers were mainly incurable and continue to kill one out of four Americans. Through the generous support of Mr. Rangos, our understanding of metastatic disease is deepening and the prospect for a cure grows brighter.