Duke Fellow Receives 2020 Conquer Cancer Merit Award

Landon Brown, medical oncology fellow at Duke Cancer Institute, has been selected to receive a 2020 Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Merit Award.

Brown will present his abstract, “LRP1B pathogenic genomic alterations are associated with favorable outcomes with immune checkpoint inhibitors across multiple tumor types,” which studied the effects of immunotherapy in patients with LRP1B mutations. The senior author on the paper is Andrew Armstrong, MD, ScM, FACP, Director of Research, the Duke Cancer Institute Center for Prostate and Urologic Cancers.

“LRP1B is a commonly mutated gene found in many cancers, including lung cancer and prostate cancer,” explained Brown. “Our study looked at 101 patients with LRP1B mutations treated with immunotherapy at Duke Cancer Institute, University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. We found that patients with LRP1B mutations that are predicted to inactivate the gene have better outcomes with immunotherapy compared to those with mutations that are less likely to affect the function of the gene. This suggests that a subset of patients with LRP1B mutations may be more sensitive to immunotherapy.”

The Conquer Cancer Foundation seeks to support early career oncologists making significant contributions to advancing cancer research through Merit Awards. These distinguished awards support oncology trainees who are first authors on abstracts selected for presentation at the ASCO Annual Meeting.

Visit Conquer Cancer Foundation for the full news release.