Nimmi Ramanujam, Robert W. Carr, Jr., distinguished professor of biomedical engineering, received a $10.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to support her research aimed at detecting and treating early breast cancer.
The 2024 Innovator Award will cover four years of Ramanujam and her team’s work to reduce the burdens of cancer treatments on patients, particularly ones who do not live near a hospital.
Ramanujam shared that her team hopes to develop a new treatment model that would allow patients to receive their entire treatment in one visit rather than returning for multiple doses. To do so, she said the team will look to take advantage of currently known information about tumors in order to develop effective engineering technologies.
“[The model] is designed to overcome the toxicity and the duration of current breast cancer treatments. We've seen an increase in screening mammography, but we have yet to see a big change in metastatic burden,” Ramanujam said. “So, we're trying to figure out how we can treat them early and take advantage of the immune system in these patients.”
With the funding, she hopes to pursue clinical trials to determine the safety and efficacy of the drug within humans so that they can move to “larger trials.”
“I hope it will help increase access to breast cancer treatment, and … reduce the burden that current treatments have on the family unit of the healthcare system and the socio-economic fabric,” she said.
The project builds Ramanujam’s research on ways to “eliminate mortality” from cervical and breast cancer at Duke’s Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies. The center — which she founded — has the primary goal of increasing the impact of biomedical innovations and addressing disparities in women’s health.
Ramanujam said her inspiration for founding the center was to harness her talents and put her efforts toward something that could help others.
“The goal of the center is really mirrored in … the grant,” she said. “It's really looking at the problem and saying, not just what treatment is better or what technology is better, but what are the gaps in the health system that the technology can address?”
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Srilakshmi Venkatesan is a Trinity first-year and a staff reporter for the news department.