VCU Massey Cancer Center

Physician-researcher receives 2012 Alliance Research Grant

VCU Massey Cancer Center hematologist-oncologist Beata Holkova, M.D., was recently awarded an Alliance Research Grant to support her work involving drug combinations to battle B-cell lymphomas. The grant was presented at this year’s Alliance Group Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. Holkova is a Harrison Endowed Scholar and member of the Developmental Therapeutics research program at VCU Massey Cancer Center and assistant professor of hematology-oncology and internal medicine at the VCU School of Medicine.

Each year, The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Foundation awards grants to junior oncology faculty to support their research activities. Research can include studies that assess interventions in cancer patients and/or research that examines biological specimens obtained by cancer patients. 

In Holkova’s case, her phase I clinical trial combines carfilzomib, a proteasome inhibitor, with obatoclax, a Bcl-2 Inhibitor, an experimental combination, in relapsed/refractory