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Yolonda Colson, MD, PhD, surgeon and director of the Women’s Lung Cancer Center, received the annual Edward M. Kennedy Award for Healthcare Innovation for her work developing lymphatic nanotechnology to limit the spread and recurrence of cancer.
“I think we are making progress that one day will significantly help cancer patients,” said Colson. “And this work would not be possible without the help of CIMIT, which has been extremely helpful since it kept an idea alive and provided financial awards to enable us to pursue this work.”
CIMIT, or the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, presents the Edward M. Kennedy Award annually to a team of doctors and scientists whose work embodies the CIMIT mission of innovative collaboration.
Colson’s research team, the Cancer Advanced-Technology Team, which includes Mark Grinstaff, PhD, of Boston University, and John Frangioni, MD, PhD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is developing a system to identify lymph nodes. This approach incorporates a new imaging technology known as Flare, which utilizes near-infrared light to identify specially labeled nanoparticles as they migrate to nearby lymph nodes where cancer cells can hide. The system has the potential to change the way clinicians treat many types of cancer, including lung cancer, which is the number one cancer killer of both men and women.
“I commend Yolonda Colson, John Frangioni and Mark Grinstaff for their promising research on new approaches to make cancer treatments more effective, reduce rates of recurrence and adverse side effects and improve patient survival,” said Sen. Kennedy, for whom the award was named.