Improving outcomes for those with the deadliest cancers is ongoing.
Trudy G. Oliver, professor in the department of pharmacology and cancer biology at the Duke University School of Medicine, examines a possible new step forward.
Trudy G. Oliver, PhD, is a Professor of Pharmacology & Cancer Biology at Duke University and a Duke Science & Technology Scholar. A first-generation college graduate from rural Oklahoma, she was inspired to pursue cancer research after witnessing family members battle the disease. Dr. Oliver earned her PhD in Cancer Biology at Duke, followed by postdoctoral training at MIT, and launched her independent career at the University of Utah before being recruited back to Duke in 2022. Her laboratory has developed pioneering mouse and organoid models that revealed new insights into small cell lung cancer (SCLC) subtypes, metabolic vulnerabilities, therapy resistance, and most recently, the surprising basal cell origin of SCLC. She has received numerous awards, including honors from the Lung Cancer Research Foundation, the IASLC, Mark Foundation and the American Cancer Society, and serves as co-PI of the NCI SCLC Research Consortium Coordinating Center. Dr. Oliver is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of scientists while advancing research to improve outcomes for patients with aggressive lung cancers.
Small Cell Lung Cancer
Small cell lung cancer, or SCLC, is one of the deadliest cancers. For decades, scientists believed it started in specialized lung neuroendocrine cells because SCLC closely resembles them. Yet, when our team of researchers engineered animal neuroendocrine cells with human cancer mutations, the resulting tumors never captured the full complexity of the human disease.…