Announcing 2016 SARC Career Development Awards

Lara Davis, MD & Angela Hirbe, MD, PhD

At the 2016 SARC Semiannual Meeting, June 3, 2016, SARC announced the 2016 Career Development Award recipients. Dr. Richard Gorlick, Co-chair of the Career Development Award Committee presented Dr. Lara Davis and Dr. Angela Hirbe with their awards. This program is funded through the SARC Sarcoma SPORE Career Development Program.

Dr. Lara Davis is a member of the Knight Cancer Institute at OHSU where she has dual appointments in the Division of Medical Oncology and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. Her focus is extensively on sarcoma in these areas in both the clinic and in the laboratory. Dr. Davis’ project will specifically deal with CDK4 inhibition in a molecularly-selected population of sarcomas.

Dr. Angela Hirbe will begin her faculty position as instructor at the Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Oncology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO starting August 15, 2016. She is interested in utilizing genomics to identify drivers in Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor (MPNST) pathogenesis. Dr. Hirbe’s project will focus on  b_III -spectrin as a biomarker and therapeutic target for MPNST.

Funding of clinical scientists as they begin their careers has been an important SARC program. SARC began funding Career Development Awards in 2009. In 2012, with the SARC Sarcoma SPORE award, the SARC program was incorporated into the SARC Sarcoma SPORE Career Development Program.