North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society Announces 2021 NANETS Clinical Investigator Scholarship Award Recipient

Boston, MA, August 31, 2021 --(PR.com)-- NANETS provide $100,000 two-year research grant.

The North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (NANETS) congratulates Jessica E. Maxwell, MD, as the 2021 recipient of the NANETS Clinical Science Investigator Award (NCIS). She was awarded this scholarship for her proposal: Characterization of the small bowel neuroendocrine tumor immune environment.

Dr. Maxwell is an Assistant Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“Working on an immunophenotyping project is a natural marriage between two of my great interests—GI NETs and the role of the immune system in cancer patients. I have been fortunate to find great mentors at MD Anderson who brought me into the fold on projects they had underway, allowing me to learn early in my career how to put together collaborative research groups and design translational projects. This was the foundation I needed to put this project together and move toward my goal of building a NET-focused translational research program in our surgical oncology department,” commented Dr. Maxwell upon learning of the award.

"The long term goal of my research is to develop novel immunotherapies that will extend patient survival. Currently, there are few options for NET patients, but these agents have shown promise in other cancers. There are clearly mechanisms at play that researchers and clinicians do not completely understand, and to determine which patients may benefit from existing therapies or to develop new therapies, a more complete understanding of the immune environment in NET patients is needed,” said Dr. Maxwell.

"NANETS is delighted to have the opportunity to support Dr. Maxwell, who joins a long line of exceptionally promising early-career investigators to receive this grant. In keeping with the mission of NANETS’ grants to encourage the development of outstanding clinical and laboratory-based investigators in the critical first few years of their careers, many prior grantees have gone on to make substantial contributions to the NET field and NANETS itself, including many of our current board members and committee chairs.

"We look forward to Dr. Maxwell’s continued contributions and enthusiasm over the coming years," commented Daniel Halperin, MD, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Chair, NANETS’ Scientific Review & Research Committee.

The NCIS award encourages clinicians at the end of their fellowship or beginning of their faculty appointment to pursue a clinical career focused on neuroendocrine tumors. NANETS is grateful to Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals for its support of this grant since NANETS’ research grants program inception in 2010. Ipsen offers this award in honor of Edda Gomez-Panzani, MD for her dedication and work on behalf of patients living with neuroendocrine tumors.