The V Foundation for Cancer Research has awarded Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center computational biologist Dr. Gavin Ha a 2020 V Scholar Grant to study whether a noninvasive procedure known as a liquid biopsy can help monitor and predict how patients with prostate cancer will respond to therapy.
V Scholar Grants are designed to help early-career investigators like Ha pursue high-risk, high-reward ideas. Ha uses computational methods to profile cancer genomes from patients’ tumors and blood. These blood tests, often referred to as liquid biopsies, can be used to study DNA released from tumor cells into the blood to reveal crucial information about a patient’s disease, including clues to treatment resistance.
“Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in men, but what makes prostate cancer deadly in some men but not others? The answer lies in the DNA of prostate tumor cells,” said Ha, who is a member of the Public Health Sciences and Human Biology divisions at the Hutch. “My research is focused on developing innovative approaches to better understand the roles of genetic abnormalities in cancer treatment resistance.”
