Happy New Year from the Global Oncology Program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

2022 Annual Report

As the new year begins, we wanted to share with you the progress that we made during 2022. Our critical cancer and infectious disease research and training efforts continue to inform and transform research and clinical care in low-resource settings. We acknowledge the toll that the COVID-19 pandemic and other global events have had — and continue to have — on our research and operations, teams, partners, patients, and the world.

We recently published our fiscal annual report that provides an overview of research progress and scientific achievements, training initiatives, and other news.

Our 2022 Highlights

Our research portfolio includes eight cancers: breast, Burkitt Lymphoma, Cervix, Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, Kaposi sarcoma, leukemia, lung and nephroblastoma, and five infections and viruses: bacteremia, blood infections, HHV-8, KSHV-Multicentric Castleman’s disease and neutropenic fever.

Study highlights are below, and more details on our studies can be found in our annual report:

• UCI-Fred Hutch Collaboration researchers completed a retrospective study of treatment response and treatment-related mortality in pediatric patients with AML at the UCI. Dr. Clement Okello, a research fellow, presented the findings at the 64th ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition.
• Our researchers are conducting a study to understand questions about KSHV transmission, acquisition and immune response among children and adolescents in Uganda, which remain unknown.
• Our researchers aim to evaluate liquid biopsy as an effective and minimally invasive tool in diagnosing and monitoring women with metastatic breast cancer in a low-resource setting.

Publications

Global Oncology faculty and UCI collaborators published 36 manuscripts, including several that are independent research by the Collaboration’s current or former fellows. Select publications are below:

• Precision Medicine in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
• Multiple High-Risk HPV Types Contribute to Cervical Dysplasia in Ugandan Women Living with HIV on Antiretroviral Therapy
• Clinical Outcome and Treatment-Related Mortality in Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treated at the Uganda Cancer Institute
• Knowledge and perceptions of antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial stewardship among staff at a national cancer referral center in Uganda

New Grants

Global Oncology received five new grants. In December, we also awarded our FY23 GO Pilot Grant, which will focus on novel treatment applications in low-resource settings to Dr. Shailender Bhatia. A few of our new awards include:

• Jackson Orem & Edus H. Warren “Cancer Genomics and Genomic Data Science for East Africa,” NIH/NCI D43 ($1.35 million)
• Elizabeth Gulleen “Colonization with drug resistant bacteria in Ugandan Patients with Cancer and HIV,” CFAR ($110,000)
• Warren Phipps & Michael Boeckh “Establishing Capacity to Conduct Respiratory Pathogen Studies at the UCI-Fred Hutch Cancer Centre,” VIDD Faculty Initiative Program grant ($60,000)

Other News

• In response to the Ebola virus outbreak in Uganda, declared in September 2022, our teams launched an incident command team to ensure patient and employee safety.
• 5,000+ COVID-19 tests have been performed at UCI-Fred Hutch Cancer Centre since the start of our participation in the Uganda Ministry of Health’s Testing Program in November 2020.
• The White House’s FACT SHEET: Cancer Moonshot Announces New Actions Aimed to Reduce the Cancer Burden in Africa as Part of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit highlights our UCI-Fred Hutch Collaboration.

Looking Ahead to 2023

We plan to complete current studies and activate new studies that have the potential to better understand cancers and improve how cancers are diagnosed or treated in Uganda or other low-resource settings.

Additionally, we look forward to continuing our training efforts with our outstanding fellows and to launching the new training program in cancer genomics. We are committed to pursuing our mission as breakthrough research findings should be available everywhere, equitably.

We want to hear from you and connect with you.

• Visit Global Oncology at fredhutch.org/go or our UCI-Fred Hutch Collaboration website.
• Email: globaloncology@fredhutch.org

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