Adam Belanger, MD, a second-year pulmonology fellow in pulmonary diseases and critical care medicine at the UNC School of Medicine, was one of four North Carolina researchers to win a research grant from the Lung Cancer Initiative of North Carolina’s Research Fellows Program.
The UNC School of Medicine’s Adam Belanger, MD, was one of four North Carolina researchers to win a research grant from the Lung Cancer Initiative of North Carolina’s Research Fellows Program, the nonprofit has announced.
Belanger, MD, is a second-year pulmonology fellow in pulmonary diseases and critical care medicine at the UNC School of Medicine. He was awarded a $25,000 grant to study molecular drivers of lung cancer’s spread in the body.
“This grant will help us look for new ways to target lung cancer, and hopefully will lead to better treatments,” Belanger said.
Belanger’s work takes place in the lab of Chad Pecot, MD, a UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center member and an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine. Pecot’s lab is focused on lung cancer metastasis, the ultimate cause of death for many lung cancer patients. Specifically, they’re studying the role of gene expression regulation molecules called microRNAs in cancerous cells.
The Lung Cancer Initiative of North Carolina is a nonprofit dedicated to the support of lung cancer research and education. This is the inaugural round of funding for the organization’s Research Fellows Program, which was launched in order to help young scientists develop pilot data for future larger grants. Since 2008, the Lung Cancer Initiative of North Carolina has funded $750,000 in lung cancer research overall.