PHILADELPHIA (December 13, 2018) – The American Cancer Society’s newly formed Pennsylvania/New Jersey Pay-If Research Council has selected Jaye Gardiner, PhD, from Fox Chase Cancer Center, to receive a $163,500 research grant to study ways to identify better treatment options for pancreatic cancer patients.
Thanks to the efforts of the Pay-If Research Council, Gardiner will continue her efforts to understand the signaling that arises from cell-cell interactions in the pancreatic tumor microenvironment.
“We are excited by the possibilities that Dr. Gardiner’s research presents,” said Arnold Baskies, MD, Pennsylvania/New Jersey Pay-If Research Council Co-Chair and American Cancer Society Past Chairman of the National Board of Directors.
“This year, over 55,000 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and over 44,000 will die. This is incredibly important work, as it will help us to understand the underlying cause of pancreatic cancer.”
The American Cancer Society Pennsylvania/New Jersey Pay-If Council research grant was made possible by the efforts of its members, comprised of generous donors, volunteers and community leaders from across the Greater Philadelphia area. The committee’s role is to spread visibility and help raise additional funds to support pay-if research grants with a goal of dramatically reducing unnecessary suffering and death from cancer.
Gardiner studies pancreatic cancers as a member of the Edna Cukierman laboratory at Fox Chase. Her research seeks to understand how and why a cancer cell’s environment influences whether it will grow, spread, or respond to treatment. Gardiner recently won the Science Communication Prize from the Mindlin Foundation, and was a semi-finalist for the HHMI Hanna H. Gray Fellows Award.
