Catalyst Program

Keila E. Torres, MD, PhD, MBA, FACS is founder and leader of the SARC Catalyst Program, which is co-led by SARC’s Chief Scientific Officer Jonathan Fletcher, MD.

Dr. Torres is a surgical oncologist in the sarcoma division at MD Anderson Cancer Center. In addition to her clinical and lab research commitments in sarcoma, Dr. Torres is a successful entrepreneur. Her experience with business incubators – where her own developmental concepts were strengthened by expert coaching in monthly group sessions – inspired her to create the Catalyst Program.

In this same manner, SARC Catalyst awardees will benefit from pilot project funding and a coaching committee. The program will support small-scale projects positioned for rapid progress, although other needs – such as coaching for program grant applications – will also be addressed.

The 2024 Catalyst Award recipient is Everett Moding, MD, PHD, whose project is “Correlative analysis of CSF-1R blockade and immunotherapy in leiomyosarcoma.” Together with co-awardee Dr. Maggie Zhou, Dr. Moding will analyze tumor and blood specimens collected from a clinical trial combining CSF-1R blockade and immunotherapy in patients with leiomyosarcoma. He aims to show that CSF-1R blockade can improve the efficacy of immunotherapy by blocking the recruitment of immunosuppressive macrophages and directly targeting leiomyosarcoma tumor cells.

This Catalyst project is generously supported by funding from the Leiomyosarcoma Support & Direct Research Foundation and by the National Leiomyosarcoma Foundation.

The 2022 Catalyst Award recipient was Joanna Przybyl, PhD, whose project, “Multi-omic circulating tumor DNA testing in leiomyosarcoma”, seeks advances in ctDNA methods to more effectively monitor leiomyosarcoma.

This Catalyst project was generously supported by funding from the Leiomyosarcoma Support & Direct Research Foundation and by the McGill University Health Centre Foundation.