Postdoc awarded fellowship from American Cancer Society

Scott Stuart, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, has been awarded a $150,000 fellowship from the American Cancer Society.

The award supports cancer researchers at the beginning of their careers. He is working with Natalie Ahn,professor of biochemistry, to study the effectiveness of BRAF inhibitors. BRAF is a protein involved in cell signaling and growth; it causes cancer when mutated.

"Early BRAF inhibitors were successful in the lab but largely unsuccessful in the clinic," Stuart said. "But new therapies are showing fairly remarkable responses in the clinic. We want to know why some are successful and others are not. We believe the different responses may be due to targeting different parts of the (protein's) pathway."

Besides covering his salary for three years, the fellowship will help pay for Stuart to attend medical research conferences.