Dr. Elizabeth Budde, a researcher in the Clinical Research Division’s Press Lab, received a three-year, $195,000 career development award from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to further her work using immunotherapy to treat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Working with her mentor, Dr. Oliver Press, Budde is using a new strategy to treat lymphoma: inserting two genes into patients’ own immune cells. One gene enables these cells to recognize and kill lymphoma cells; the other serves as a latent “suicide bomb” which can be regulated to go off if there is a need to eliminate these modified immune cells. A phase I clinical trial is planned.
Budde’s award is sponsored by the employees of Elbit Systems of America on behalf of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the world's largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, education and patient services. The society chooses four or five Clinical Fellows in Clinical Research annually from a worldwide applicant pool.
“I'm just incredibly humbled and extremely happy to be selected as the researcher they wanted to sponsor. We are fortunate that the community recognizes the urgent need to support cancer research,” said Budde, who is also an acting instructor in Medical Oncology at the University of Washington.
