A Championship Team in Breast Cancer Research: Richard Possemato, Ph.D.
How V Foundation-funded researcher Richard Possemato, Ph.D., is advancing breast cancer research with his team
Throughout the illustrious college basketball coaching career of Jim Valvano, he believed in his team. In 1983, he believed that his team could beat anyone they stepped onto the court against. And they did, as the underdog NC State Wolfpack defeated the No. 1 seed Houston in the national championship.
Fast-forward 10 years, Jim partnered with ESPN to start the V Foundation for Cancer Research. Jim wanted to continue believing in the underdogs, the brilliant yet underfunded cancer researchers. He wanted to invest in them so that their wins could change the game against cancer.
And the V Foundation has stayed true to that mission – to fund the best of the best cancer researchers who are seeking groundbreaking results. The V Foundation has made a tremendous impact over the past 31 years, funding over $353 million in cancer research grants. This investment from the V Foundation has served as a catalyst in the careers of many scientists as V Foundation researchers have gone on to, throughout their careers, receive over $19.5 billion in additional research funding.
Funding from foundations like the V Foundation is crucial as an investment into a young researcher or a fresh idea. Richard Possemato, Ph.D., Associate Professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, is thankful for the grant the V Foundation awarded to his lab to launch his career in breast cancer research.
“Cancer research funding that comes from foundations is really valuable,” Dr. Possemato said. “When the V Foundation supported my lab, it was at a very early stage. It was a time where we were starting with just an idea, and we wanted to be able to build it in a way that could take it to the next level and be something that could get a large grant that could compete for money to make drugs for cancer research.”
Dr. Possemato and his team at NYU are focused on diving deeper into breast cancer research. Through their work in genetic screening technology, they have identified one particular target within the DNA. They hope to evaluate the anti-cancer effect of inhibitors for that target. Ideally, this development would lead to therapeutic approaches to breast cancer in the future.
By personalizing this approach, the treatment options will be able to target the cancer cells and spare the normal cells. This would produce a gentler, more effective treatment option for breast cancer patients.
Research, in any stage, is a lot of trial and error. Every day, Dr. Possemato and his team are taking new findings and asking new questions to move forward toward a game-changing breakthrough.
“I think, to a large extent, cancer researchers are regular people,” Dr. Possemato said. “They’ve been touched by cancer just like everyone else has. So, there’s that same drive to cure cancer, to want to know how it started, what can we do about it, and what approaches can we develop. Every day we are trying to figure out what the next question is to answer and really being creative and trying to come up with novel tools and novel ideas to attack those problems.”
Just like Jim Valvano’s basketball team seeking a championship, cancer research is a team effort.
“It may not seem like a team effort,” Dr. Possemato said. When you think of a scientist, you think of someone alone in a lab in the dark, toiling away at whatever it is. But it really is a team effort in that a lab has many people, and every person brings different expertise. Just like a basketball team, everyone has a specialized role. That aspect of it and the fact that it is so much like a team sport, there’s a lot of synergy between what how someone from a sports background might think of winning a game versus how a scientist might think of tackling a scientific problem.”
One of Dr. Possemato’s first connections to the V Foundation was one that was unexpected. While at a scientific conference, a local Hooters hosted the attendees for a meal. At the meal, they collected funds for their ‘Give a Hoot’ campaign to raise money for breast cancer research in partnership with the V Foundation. Dr. Possemato remembers donating to the campaign.
“I donated to it not even thinking about it,” Dr. Possemato said. “Obviously, I’m a cancer researcher and it allowed everybody really to feel like they were part of the solution. People going about their daily lives care about cancer research, but don’t really have an opportunity to just say, ‘Oh, I’m going to contribute in some way to this’. But, by having corporate sponsorships like with Hooters, it brings more people into the fold to be part of the team.”
Almost a decade later, Dr. Possemato’s grant with the V Foundation was funded in partnership with Hooters.
“It made me smile a bit. I wouldn’t have really thought about it much at the time, but it was nice to be able to have that money and the money that everyone collected to be put to use to advance breast cancer treatments.”
The V Foundation has a singular goal: to achieve Victory Over Cancer®, and we are accelerating that goal through funding innovative researchers, like Dr. Possemato. To him, the meaning of that goal is simple.
“Victory Over Cancer® to me means that people won’t be terrified of a cancer diagnosis,” Dr. Possemato said. “They’ll know that there will be a way forward for them, for their family, and that the treatments that we develop not only will prevent people from dying but will allow them to live fuller lives.
“And then, hopefully, I’ll be out of a job.”
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