Two Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators have earned grant awards from The V Foundation for Cancer Research, continuing the foundation’s support for innovative cancer research initiatives at VICC.

Lisa Kachnic, M.D., chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), has been elected president of the American Board of Radiology (ABR). She assumed the role after being chosen president-elect of the organization in March 2014 and succeeds former ABR President Milton Guiberteau, M.D.

Improved therapies have led to a spike in the number of people living with cancer, and today there are more than 15.5 million survivors in the United States. However, some of these therapies can cause toxicities to the heart, the vessels and the body’s metabolism.

Vanderbilt researchers have determined that a previously uncharacterized protein responds to DNA replication stress and has an essential role in maintaining the integrity of the genome.

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) is leading a Phase 3 global trial of a cancer therapy that was initially tested and validated in a VICC research laboratory. One of the first patients treated with the therapy came to VICC after a bump on the head led to an unexpected cancer diagnosis.

One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime and those cancers are often detected through screening mammograms. A mammogram is a low-dose X-ray of the breast that enables an imaging specialist to look for changes in breast tissue that could indicate cancer.