{"id":440431,"date":"2026-05-13T23:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T23:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/440431\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T23:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T23:41:08","slug":"fred-hutch-researchers-receive-prostate-cancer-foundation-young-investigator-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/440431\/","title":{"rendered":"Fred Hutch researchers receive Prostate Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two researchers at Fred Hutch Cancer Center recently received Young Investigator Awards from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcf.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Prostate Cancer Foundation<\/a> for their work investigating epigenetic features of aggressive prostate cancer that could lead to more personalized care and better results from existing therapies.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genome.gov\/genetics-glossary\/Epigenetics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Epigenetics<\/a> focuses on DNA modifications that do not change the underlying sequence.<\/p>\n<p>Every cell of the human body has the same set of genes encoded in DNA, but when cells specialize into different tissues, they only need a subset of those genes turned on.<\/p>\n<p>A second \u201cepigenetic\u201d code customizes DNA with chemical tags that regulate which genes are turned on and off in specific circumstances, such as when a generic cell in early development becomes a muscle, skin, kidney or brain cell.<\/p>\n<p>Some epigenetic changes drive cancer, but those changes can be manipulated without changing the underlying genetics, making them a promising target for therapy.<\/p>\n<p>Pallabi Mustafi, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fredhutch.org\/en\/faculty-lab-directory\/haffner-michael.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Haffner, MD, PhD<\/a>, received a Young Investigator Award for research into a subtype of aggressive prostate cancer she discovered. The subtype is characterized by an unusual epigenetic modification that responds well to a combination of drugs.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fredhutch.org\/en\/faculty-lab-directory\/raychaudhuri-ruben.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ruben Raychaudhuri, MD, PhD<\/a>, also received a Young Investigator Award to test an epigenetic approach that could make a recently approved therapy more effective in aggressive prostate cancer by increasing the contrast between tumor cells and normal tissue.<\/p>\n<p>The awards provide $75,000 a year for three years and include collaboration with mentors. Haffner is a mentor for both recipients.<\/p>\n<p style=\"&#9;text-align: center;&#10;\">Article continues below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two researchers at Fred Hutch Cancer Center recently received Young Investigator Awards from the Prostate Cancer Foundation for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[20471,379,6752,163,51584,85,46,206457,206459,3776,206458],"class_list":["post-440431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-clinical-research","tag-epigenetics","tag-good-news","tag-health","tag-human-biology","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-michael-haffner","tag-michael-schweizer","tag-prostate-cancer","tag-ruben-raychaudhuri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}