A $1.59 million grant from the National Cancer Institute will allow a UA assistant professor of medicine to further research lymphoma treatment.

Jonathan Schatz was awarded a five-year grant to specifically look at drug resistance within lymphoma treatment.

According to a press release from the UA Cancer Center, Schatz is a medical oncologist with a focus on lymphoma. The press release also stated that he is currently a member of the Cancer Center’s Therapeutic Development Program and an investigator in the Clinical & Translational Sciences Institute of the BIO5 Institute. The grant will fund studies conducted by Schatz and co-investigators to combat drug resistance when treating lymphoma and will also allow researchers to treat other forms of cancer.

Researchers at the UA are looking into how to approach lymphoma and its unresponsiveness to certain drugs.

The Cancer Center press release also said that through the research, Schatz said he hopes it will allow him and his team to establish findings that could help with other cancers.

On Sept. 19, Shatz’s five year- long study, “A New Treatment Paradigm for ALK-Driven Cancers Exploiting Oncogene Overdose,” began.

“It will allow us to better understand the signaling events that are happening in many cancers and how we can develop new treatments, based on those signaling events,” Schatz said.

Fernando Martinez, director of the BIO5 Institute, said the grant will allow Schatz and other key collaborators to learn why cancers stop responding to treatment.

Martinez also said the research will offer new approaches that will lead to better control of the disease and prolong the lives of patients.

Lisa Romero, BIO5 senior director for communications and public affairs, said the research will have an impact in the community in terms of cancer treatment. She said Schatz applies what he learns in his research to his treatment for patients.

“We have a really great asset at the UA in terms of [how] we have physicians [and] scientists like Dr. Schatz,” Romero said.

Romero also said Schatz’s treatment and research plays an important role in the community, especially by involving the University of Arizona Medical Center and Cancer Center. 

The Cancer Center, established in 1976, continues to be one of the leading cancer centers in the nation with research in different forms of cancer.

“Dr. Schatz will be working closely with experts at the UA in bioinformatics, pathology and cancer research to further the objectives of this study,” Romero said.

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