Dr. Despina Siolas, MD, Ph.D., a medical oncologist at NYU Langone Health, received a Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health in September 2019. This five-year research grant is the second such grant ever received at NYU Langone Health in the field of Medical Oncology.
The NCI Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award (K08) provides financial support and “protected time” to non-tenured clinician-scientists who are at an early stage in their academic career for an intensive, mentored research experience in translational cancer research. Dr. Siolas has been working in the prestigious laboratory of Dr. Dafna Bar-Sagi, a world-renown expert in pancreatic cancer for five years.1
Her research grant is entitled “Investigating the non-cell autonomous immune effects of mutant p53 in pancreatic cancer.” Pancreatic cancer is projected to become the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. by 2020.[1] In addition to her research, Dr. Siolas also actively treats cancer patients at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, where she focuses on gastrointestinal oncology including liver cancer, colon cancer, esophageal cancer, stomach cancer, gallbladder cancer and her research specialty, pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Siolas is an active member of the American Society for Clinical Oncology, American Medical Association, American Association for Cancer Research and Hellenic Medical Society of New York. Dr. Siolas is a graduate of Stony Brook Medical School with dissertation research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
She received her BS in Biology from St. John’s University and her high school diploma from Benjamin Cardozo High School. Congratulations to Dr. Despina Siolas, MD, Ph.D., a product of the New York State educational system, which aims to educate all students regardless of background who have the ambition to succeed.
Photo by © ASCO/Todd Buchanan 2015
