Trang Nguyen Selected to Receive ABTA Basic Research Fellowship

Trang Nguyen, a postdoctoral research scientist in the lab led by Markus Siegelin, associate professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University Medical Center, was among the six postdoctoral researchers selected nationwide to receive the Basic Research Fellowship from American Brain Tumor Association (ABTA) in 2019.

Established in 1973, the American Brain Tumor Association supports young scientists to find solutions to prevent and treat brain tumors in patients. Recipients of the fellowship are recognized to have the highest potential to make a difference. Basic Research Fellowships are two-year, mentored grants of $100,000 that support postdoctoral fellows who are conducting laboratory or field-based research projects that focus on brain tumors.

Dr. Nguyen received the award for her research entitled LXR agonists combined with BH3-mimetics as a novel treatment for glioblastoma, which was accepted for publication in EMBO Molecular Medicine, a leading journal in the field of biomedicine (IF 10.6) in August 2019. She found that LXR agonists, LXR623 and GW3965, enhance synergistically the anti-proliferative effects of clinically validated as well as novel selective BH3-mimetics in solid tumor malignancies, which was mediated by LXR receptor driven metabolic reprogramming of central carbon metabolism associated with tumor selective inhibition of the electron transport chain. With the award, she aims to test the hypothesis that dual targeting of liver-X-receptors and anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family members leads to a survival benefit in murine orthotopic patient-derived xenograft model systems and that this benefit occurs with minimal toxicity.