Hoosier Cancer Research Network, formerly known as Hoosier Oncology Group, recently honored Daniela Matei, MD, as the 2014 recipient of the George and Sarah Jane Fisher Young Investigator Award.

Dr. Matei received her medical degree in her native Romania before moving to the United States and completed her residency at SUNY at Stony Brook, NY, and fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles. She joined the Indiana University School of Medicine in 2002. Dr. Matei is currently an associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and a researcher at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center.

[Photo: Daniela Matei, MD, with HCRN co-founder and IU Simon Cancer Center Director Patrick J. Loehrer, Sr., MD]

The $15,000 award, established in 2011 by William B. Fisher, MD, and others through the George and Sarah Jane Fisher Fund, is given annually to an Indiana University oncology fellow or faculty member who has made significant contributions to clinical or basic science research in collaboration with the Hoosier Cancer Research Network. Dr. Fisher established the George and Sarah Jane Fisher Fund in the mid 1990s in memory of his mother, Sarah Jane, and brother, George, both of whom died of cancer within the span of three years. Dr. Fisher is a co-founder of Hoosier Cancer Research Network and served as the organization’s vice chair until 2000.

“Dr. Matei combines a unique blend of basic science and clinical investigational skills,” said Dr. Fisher. “She is a worthy recipient.”

Three individuals were key mentors in Dr. Matei’s professional development: David Chang, MD, PhD, introduced her to research during her fellowship at UCLA; David Donner, PhD, now at the University of California, San Francisco, was Dr. Matei’s clinical mentor at IU and helped her achieve her first grant; and the late Stephen Williams, MD, the first director of the IU Simon Cancer Center, introduced her to Hoosier Cancer Research Network.

Dr. Matei has led several Hoosier Cancer Research Network gynecologic cancer trials over the years. Her earliest HCRN trial, conducted 10 years ago, was among the first at HCRN that involved correlative analysis of unstained slides to determine eligibility. “We’ve come a long way in 10 years,” said Dr. Matei.

In addition to her own clinical practice and research, Dr. Matei is involved in mentoring gynecologic oncology fellows at the IU School of Medicine.

Dr. Matei plans to use the funding from the George and Sarah Jane Fisher Young Investigator Award for preclinical work toward developing a new combination of immunotherapy and epigenetic therapy for ovarian cancer.

“We have a long history of doing epigenetic therapy in ovarian cancer, in collaboration with Dr. Ken Nephew, to re-sensitize ovarian tumors to chemotherapy,” said Dr. Matei. “Now with new opportunities to explore immunological ways to target cancer, we would like to see how we could combine epigenetic therapy and immunotherapy.”

The idea for this treatment approach is rather new in ovarian cancer, said Dr. Matei. Through preclinical work, she hopes to generate data that will attract potential funding partnerships for clinical trials. In the meantime, funding from the award will provide the impetus for this critical first step.

“To explore very novel ideas which are also high-risk is very difficult to do without some pilot funding, especially in this time when federal funding is going down and a lot of the private foundations have lost their funding.” said Dr. Matei. “These types of funds are very important for junior investigators to help them start a new project, but also for more seasoned investigators like me, who can use it to branch out of their funded project and do something else that may be really ground-breaking.”

Hoosier Cancer Research Network (formerly known as Hoosier Oncology Group) conducts innovative cancer research in collaboration with academic and community physicians and scientists across the United States. The organization provides comprehensive clinical trial management and support, from conception through publication. Created in 1984 as a program of the Walther Cancer Institute, Hoosier Cancer Research Network became an independent nonprofit clinical research organization in 2007. Since its founding, Hoosier Cancer Research Network has initiated more than 150 trials in a variety of cancer types and supportive care, resulting in more than 300 publications. More than 4,400 patients have participated in Hoosier Cancer Research Network clinical trials.