Lung Cancer Research

Lung cancer investigators within the Division of Pulmonary Medicine at IU School of Medicine are involved in basic, translational and clinical research projects to improve detection, diagnosis and treatment of lung cancers for all those at risk.

Our lung cancer investigators collaborate locally with the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center Lung Cancer Working Group, and the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center and nationally with the Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program and Office of Rural Health. Highlighted include collaborations with Dr. Shadia Jalal on the Indiana University Small Cell Lung Cancer Warm Autopsy Study and with Dr. John Turchi, who is developing novel DNA-repair targeted drugs to treat lung cancer.

Our Pulmonary Oncology Research group is focused on the following areas of translational and clinical research.

Basic/Translational Research Projects

• Characterization of DNA repair in transcriptional and genomic evolution of early lung carcinogenesis (PI: Catherine Sears, M.D.)
• Pulmonary macrophage involvement in lung tumor growth (co-PIs: Dr. Catherine Sears with Dr. Mark Kaplan)
• DNA repair in age-related lung diseases (PIs: Nawar Al Nasrallah, M.D., Catherine Sears, M.D.)
• Regulation of DNA repair protein, XPC, in lung cancer (T32 fellow, Dr. Ben Wiese with Dr. Sears lab)

Clinical Research Projects

• Lung Cancer Surgery or Stereotactic Radiotherapy Trial - VALOR/NCT02984761 (PI: Dr. Catherine Sears)
• Lung cancer screening implementation - VA-PALS/EWI #7792 (PI: Dr. Catherine Sears)
• Pulmonary nodule biomarker clinical utility– ALTITUDE/NCT04171492 (PIs: Dr. Catherine Sears, Dr. Nawar Al Nasrallah)
• Addressing racial disparities in lung cancer screening – PRIME award (co-PIs: Dr. Francesca Duncan and Dr. Edwin Jackson)