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Precision medicine is rapidly changing our understanding of cancer research and treatment decisions. These breakthrough, personalized treatments hold promise even for patients with historically hard-to-treat diseases, like lung or breast cancer. But expanding the benefits of precision medicine to more patients also means expanding the global reach of next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based testing, which helps connect patients to tailored treatments.

To help expand our understanding of precision medicine in oncology and the importance of rapid, molecular testing, Thermo Fisher Scientific launched the Oncomine Clinical Research Grant program in 2020.

This global initiative supports investigator-initiated studies with up to $200,000 in reagents and general funding to assist the clinical community in their oncology-based molecular testing research. To date, 22 research proposals exploring areas including solid tumors, hematology-oncology, immune-oncology, and pediatric oncology have been awarded Oncomine Grants spanning across 14 countries on 5 continents.

As Thermo Fisher recently brought together and celebrated the global scientific research community at an exclusive scientific event this fall, let’s take a closer look at some of the past Oncomine Grant awardees and the progress they are making in exploring new and expanded applications for NGS-based testing.

Brandon Sheffield, MD – William Osler Heath System, Canada
Project title: “Rapid in-house comprehensive genomic profiling to guide community oncology practice”
2020 Oncomine Clinical Research Grant Awardee

As one of the original grant recipients, Dr. Brandon Sheffield set out to explore the clinical impacts of having rapid NGS-testing available at the point-of-care in a community hospital setting. While most cancer patients are treated at community hospitals, molecular testing in these settings is often outsourced, increasing turnaround times for vital genomic testing results, which can negatively impact a patient’s survivability.

Through the Oncomine Clinical Research Grant, Dr. Sheffield and his team researched the patient care and cost benefits associated with rapid in-house NGS testing. To date, Dr. Sheffield has co-authored 5 publications leveraging his research findings in Oncologist, Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, and Current Oncology.

“The funding from the Oncomine Grant program can really help us overcome one of the biggest hurdles for smaller and less funded centers to be able to work with these types of emerging technologies,” - Dr. Sheffield


According to Dr. Sheffield, having access to NGS testing at his community hospital has been a game-changer in accelerating cancer research. Not only is rapid NGS potentially more cost-effective for the overall health system, but, in the future, could allow pathologists and oncologists to work closely together in real time.  “The funding from the Oncomine Grant program can really help us overcome one of the biggest hurdles for smaller and less funded centers to be able to work with these types of emerging technologies,”  he said. 

Kojo S.J. Elenitoba-Johnson, MD; Megan Lim, MD, PhD – University of Pennsylvania, USA
Project Title: “Clinical validation of a rapid NGS-based molecular screening assay for myeloid neoplasms”
2020 Oncomine Clinical Research Grant Awardee

Dr. Kojo S.J. Elenitoba-Johnson (now with the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) and Dr. Megan Lim were also early awardees of the Oncomine Grant program. Together with their team at the University of Pennsylvania, they recently published findings in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics that evaluate the future use of NGS-based testing for the rapid detection of suspected myeloid neoplasms in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). 

AML carries a very low 5-year survival rate of just 28% for people over the age of 20. Detecting genetic aberrations quickly can help connect patients to an optimized therapy earlier, which can have a significant impact on outcomes. Dr. Elenitoba-Johnson’s and Dr. Lim’s research is an important step forward for understanding how quicker turnaround times with rapid genomic testing may help improve patient care in the future.

Elena Guerini Rocco, MD – European Institute of Oncology IRCCS, Italy
Project Title: “Dissecting the tumor immune microenvironment of breast cancer during pregnancy”
2021 Oncomine Clinical Research Grant Awardee

Awarded in 2021, Dr. Elena Guerini Rocco and her team used the Oncomine Grant to support and improve upon their research studying the immune-related aspects of pregnancy-associated breast cancer (PABC), a rare, complex condition. PABC, or breast cancer diagnosed during pregnancy, impacts about 1 in 3,000 pregnant women, but much is still unknown about the best course of treatment for this disease.

Dr. Guerini Rocco’s research aims to tackle this issue by increasing our understanding of PABC to identify novel biomarkers that could improve clinical management. In July 2023, the team published research in The European Journal of Cancer outlining the similarities in immune suppressive mechanisms found between normal pregnancy and breast cancer – an important step forward for identifying targeted therapeutics that could potentially help patients with PABC. 

Elin Gray, PhD – Edith Cowan University, Australia
Project Title: “TCR repertoire in combination with HLA and TMB as predictor of response to immune checkpoint blockade in melanoma and lung cancer”
2021 Oncomine Clinical Research Grant Awardee

Dr. Elin Gray and her team were awarded the Oncomine Grant in 2021 for their interest in conducting research on T-Cell Receptor repertoire in combination with the HLA gene and tumor mutation burden as a predictor of clinical outcomes in melanoma and lung cancer. 

In 2022, Dr. Gray co-authored a paper published in The European Journal of Cancer investigating how biomarkers that predict the risk of immune-mediated adverse events for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) may offer clinical benefits. NSCLC is the second most common type of lung cancer worldwide, and accounts for 81% of all cancer diagnoses in the United States. 

According to Dr. Gray, the Oncomine Clinical Research Grant program has made a tremendous impact on the scope of her team’s work: “We are now moving from the analysis that we have done with the Oncomine Grant to a large study at the national level to further evaluate these biomarkers and the T cell repertoire.” 

To learn more about past recipients of the Oncomine Clinical Research grant and their areas of research, please visit www.oncomine.com/grants. Stay tuned for our 2023 recipients, who will be announced in the coming weeks!