Dr. Jordyn Silverstein, a clinical instructor and investigator at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, has received the Young Investigator Award from Conquer Cancer, the philanthropic arm of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
Funded by the Vaniam Group and Women Leaders in Oncology, the Young Investigator Award recognizes promising early-career physician-scientists conducting innovative cancer research with the potential to improve patient care.
The award will support Silverstein’s research evaluating whether circulating tumor cells (CTCs), cancer cells that have broken away from a tumor and entered the bloodstream, can be used as a minimally invasive "liquid biopsy" to guide treatment decisions for patients with ovarian cancer.
Her research will use a next-generation technology to isolate CTCs from a simple blood sample and determine whether they accurately reflect the proteins needed for treatment with antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), a rapidly expanding class of targeted cancer therapies. Currently, patients often must undergo an invasive biopsy or rely on archived tumor tissue collected years earlier to determine whether they are eligible for these treatments.
If successful, the approach could provide clinicians with a faster, less invasive way to identify patients most likely to benefit from ADCs while also allowing them to monitor how tumors change over time and adapt treatment as the disease evolves.
"Receiving this Young Investigator Award is an incredible honor and meaningful validation of our work to improve care for women with ovarian cancer," said Silverstein. "Our study will be the first to determine whether circulating tumor cells can be used to identify ovarian cancer patients who are eligible for antibody-drug conjugate therapy. We hope this research will open the door to more accessible, personalized treatment by making it possible to guide therapy with a simple blood test."
