For the third year in a row, a discovery from the University of Virginia School of Medicine has been selected as one of the year’s most significant biomedical discoveries. The finding – identifying the gene responsible for one of the deadliest cancers – is among 64 contenders fighting it out to win the public’s votes in an online bracket tournament.
Voting opens today for “STAT Madness,” which is like the scientific version of the NCAA basketball tournament. The annual competition is sponsored by the STAT health news site to identify the year’s “best biomedical innovation,” and you can vote by clicking here. The first round is open through Sunday.
UVA is one of 64 competitors in the first round of the tournament, which features a roster of scientific heavy hitters. Other top institutions that have made it to the first round include Duke University, Stanford University, the University of Notre Dame and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The UVA discovery’s first-round “opponent” is the discovery of a genetic risk factor for melanoma, from Rockefeller University.
UVA’s entry comes from researcher Hui Li and his collaborators, who identified the oncogene (a cancer-causing gene) responsible for glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. The discovery offers a promising new treatment target for a cancer that is often fatal within a year of diagnosis.
Li and his colleagues say the oncogene is essential to the survival of glioblastoma cells. Without it, they found, the cancer cells die. Scientists have already developed many targeted therapies for other cancers with a similar “oncogene addiction,” and Li hopes his discovery will lead to more effective treatments for glioblastoma.
