C3 Summer 2023

SUMMER 2023

DIGGING IN THE DIRT

GROUNDBREAKING UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO CANCER CENTER STUDY SHOWS THAT GARDENING LOWERS CANCER RISK

4: TREATING MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING IN CANCER

12: CANCER SURVIVOR GRATEFUL FOR CLINICAL TRIAL

16: ROSS CAMIDGE, MD, PHD EMBRACES HOLISTIC CARE

20: WHAT IS AN ENDOWED CHAIR?

CU CANCER CENTER LEADERS GO TO D.C. FOR MOONSHOT EVENT

Andrea Dwyer, director of the Universty of Colorado Cancer Center’s Colorado Cancer Screening Program, and Swati Patel, MD, associate professor of gastroenterology in the CU School of Medicine, were among the medical professionals, patient advocates, industry innovators, federal policymakers, and public health officials invited to the White House on March 10 for the Cancer Moonshot Colorectal Cancer Forum.

Held in recognition of Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month in March, the event was part

DRUG COMBINATION FOR STAGE 4 MELANOMA SHOWS SUCCESS IN CU CANCER CENTER TRIAL

A new multidrug treatment for patients with stage 4 melanoma has proven effective after a three-year clinical trial at the University of Colorado Cancer Center.

The study, which was designed and led by CU Cancer Center members, was aimed at overcoming the immune suppression that occurs in some patients with metastatic melanoma—skin cancer that has spread to organs like the lungs.

“We are very interested in trying to overcome this immune suppression, and by studying our melanoma patients at the cancer center, we identified a particular cell population, called myeloidderived suppressor cells, that plays a role in melanoma-induced immunosuppression,” says CU Cancer Center member Martin McCarter, MD, who led the clinical trial.

The CU study examined the combination of the common immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA), a chemotherapy drug that targets myeloid-derived suppressor cells. In results published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, the CU researchers found that the drug combination is effective, with an overall response rate of 71%. Fifty percent of patients experienced a complete response, and the one-year overall survival rate was 80%.

of President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative that aims to cut the death rate from cancer by 50% over the next 25 years and to improve the lives of people who are living with cancer.

“It was an incredibly proud moment for the University of Colorado Cancer Center and the Colorado Cancer Screening Program,” Patel says. “We are very humbled to be selected and to represent our state and these institutions, and we are proud of the cutting-edge work that each of these organizations is doing.”

CU CANCER CENTER STUDY FINDS ADJUVANT CHEMOTHERAPY IMPROVES OVERALL SURVIVAL FOR PANCREATIC CANCER PATIENTS

In December, the University of Colorado Cancer Center released new research that finds chemotherapy treatment before and after surgery for pancreatic cancer is the most effective combination for patients.

The study was led by Marco Del Chiaro, MD, PhD, division chief of surgical oncology in the CU Department of Surgery, and visiting researcher Toshitaka Sugawara, MD, PhD

The study showed overall survival was significantly longer in patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery, compared to the group of patients that did not receive it. This was the case for all patients, independent of their lymph node status and resection margins.

“The success of adjuvant chemotherapy used to be unclear, with varied data available for doctors to consider,” Del Chiaro said. “Our study suggests that adjuvant chemotherapy after surgery should be implemented no matter the biological stage of the cancer.”

MARCO DEL CHIARO MD, PHD

MARTIN MCCARTER, MD

INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY SHOWS GREAT PROMISE AGAINST CERTAIN HEAD AND NECK CANCERS

A phase 1 clinical trial led by Antonio Jimeno, MD, PhD, co-leader of the University of Colorado Cancer Center Developmental Therapeutics Program and the CU Cancer Center head and neck cancer Specialized Programs of Regional Excellence grant from the National Cancer Institute, shows that a microfluidic squeezing technology used on peripheral blood mononuclear cells, a type of immune cell, helps stimulate anti-tumor activity in a subtype of human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive cancers, including head and neck, cervical, and anal cancers.

In the study, blood cells were removed from patients and sent through very tight channels that opened pores on their surface. Then, the cells were fed a peptide, or piece of protein, related to the HPV virus—one that immune cells usually recognize—so they could learn to recognize and build a memory of it. The aim of the process is to help ensure that the next time these cells encounter HPV-driven cancer cells, they attack.

“As opposed to other cell therapies that require a patient’s cells to be genetically modified, this involves a different way of manipulating cells that does not lead to genetic modifications,” Jimeno says. “It makes the process faster and perhaps more agile as to what you can direct the cells against.”

Published in March, the research is especially vital as HPV has increasingly been identified as a significant cause of certain head and neck cancers. Evidence suggests it causes 70% of oropharyngeal cancers in the United States.

V FOUNDATION FUNDS RESEARCH ON PEDIATRIC OSTEOSARCOMA THAT SPREADS TO THE LUNGS

University of Colorado Cancer

Center members Michael Leibowitz, MD, PhD, and Dan Regan, DVM, PhD, have received an $800,000 grant from the V Foundation for Cancer Research to study a new potential treatment for pediatric osteosarcoma that spreads to the lungs.

Regan, a faculty member at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and a researcher at the Flint Animal Cancer Center, previously identified a two-drug combination for metastatic osteosarcoma that showed success in targeting a type of immune cell called a macrophage that tumors use to grow and spread. For the new study funded by the V Foundation and other entities, Regan and Leibowitz plan to build on that two-drug combination by adding CAR T-cell therapy—cells that are genetically engineered to become better cancerfighters—to the mix. Researchers in Fort Collins will study dogs who have naturally developed osteosarcoma and lung metastases by treating them with CAR T cells.

“We think there will be synergy between the CAR T product and Dan’s two-drug product,” Leibowitz says. “In addition, the CAR T cell, by eliminating these cancer-associated fibroblasts, will also deplete a physical barrier around tumors that we call stroma. We hypothesize that this will enable immune cells like T cells to get into the tumor and increase anti-tumor efficacy.”

DAN REGAN, DVM, PHD

ANTONIO JIMENO, MD, PHD

MICHAEL LEIBOWITZ MD, PHD

Understanding

Cancer

in the Mind and the Heart

By Rachel Sauer

CU Cancer Center researchers and clinicians are leading the way in treating cancer as a disease that affects mental and emotional well-being alongside physical health.

Cancer, the author Susan Sontag wrote, is “the disease that doesn’t knock before it enters.”

It’s the scary C-word that a large and continually growing body of research demonstrates has effects far beyond its physical symptoms. A cancer diagnosis, especially one made in the later stages of the disease, often impacts a person’s mental and emotional health in ways that can be unexpected and broad-reaching.

“As humans, we are spiritual and emotional as well as physical beings, and that’s how cancer needs to be treated,” says Stacy Fischer, MD, co-leader of the University of Colorado Cancer Center Cancer Prevention and Control Program. “We can have suffering across all those domains of who we are, but it’s not easy to ask about and not easy to address. As cancer treatment has evolved into a more whole-person approach, though, we’ve recognized that mental and emotional distress is a huge problem.”

CU Cancer Center clinicians and researchers are at the forefront of treating cancer holistically and recognizing cancer as a mental and emotional health diagnosis, not just a physical one. Patients receive care from multidisciplinary teams whose members include mental health specialists and social workers, and researchers are studying groundbreaking mental health interventions for people diagnosed with cancer, particularly late-stage disease.

One such study, led by Fischer and Jim Grigsby, PhD, a professor of psychology at CU Denver, along with researchers at New York University, is researching the use of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in advanced cancer. The study is being closely followed by scientists and members of the public alike for its innovative approach to addressing the depression and anxiety that people with late-stage cancer can feel. (See Decoding Cancer, page 9.)

STACY FISCHER, MD

“We’ve made incredible advances in cancer therapeutics, so that many people who receive a cancer diagnosis are living longer and physically healthier lives,” says CU Cancer Center member Joanna Arch, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at CU Boulder.

“We’ve been hearing more and more from patients and practitioners that patients with advanced cancer are in dramatic need of supportive mental and emotional health care services at a level we didn’t fully appreciate before.”

JOANNA ARCH, PHD

“Working with a sense of urgency”

In the 1950s, building on centuries of observed distress following or related to the symptoms and side effects of cancer, clinicians began approaching the mental health impacts of the disease as a serious and urgent area of study.

In 1956, New York clinician Arthur Sutherland, MD, wrote that “the cancer patient must be seen as a person under a special and severe form of stress. … Such stress may threaten or disrupt important patterns of adaptation which the patient has evolved.”

However, even with this early clinical recognition that people diagnosed and/or living with cancer may be experiencing mental and emotional distress, research and treatment are still largely focused on the physical aspects of cancer.

“I remember as an undergrad in the ’80s, there was this idea of ‘mind over matter’ that was so prevalent,” Kilbourn recalls. “It was this idea that if you didn’t think negative thoughts and just focused on visualization to improve your immune system, that somehow it would help you cure your cancer. The other side of it was that if the cancer didn’t go away, people felt responsible.”

There is growing recognition that even the common language of cancer can have negative consequences for those living with a cancer diagnosis, Fischer says—“this idea that you’re ‘fighting’ cancer, and if cancer causes your death, then you’ve ‘lost the fight.’ More and more, we’re recognizing that the way we talk about cancer shouldn’t blame the person for having it, and that we fight for all kinds of things, not just beating cancer. We fight for quality of life, or for control, or to have things happen on our own terms. And it’s not about whether you won or lost.”

More than a physiological disease

Such recognition contributes to the expanding body of research demonstrating the many ways in which what has long been considered a physiological disease is also a mental and emotional one.

Research published in 2018 from the University of Ferrara in Italy shows that about 35% to 40% of all cancer patients have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder, and rates are higher in those with advanced stages of the disease or who are accessing palliative care. Rates are not significantly lower among cancer survivors, evidence shows.

“It’s true that the majority of people who receive a cancer diagnosis are not clinically anxious or depressed,” Arch says, “but it’s a large minority who are.”

KRISTIN KILBOURN, PHD

“It’s really in the past several decades that we’ve been working with a sense of urgency to develop psychosocial interventions for people living with cancer,” says CU Cancer Center member Kristin Kilbourn, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at CU Denver who is involved in the training of counselors and therapists guiding sessions in the psilocybin-assisted therapy research, as well as a project providing psychosocial support to rural and historically marginalized individuals diagnosed with lung or head and neck cancer. She leads the Psychosocial Oncology Lab on the CU Denver downtown campus, focusing on research to improve the experience of patients and caregivers across the cancer care trajectory.

The mental and emotional impacts of cancer can impact the whole of a person’s life, Arch says, and can include fears that stem from confronting mortality and death, the loss of dreams and expectations, feelings of guilt for “doing this” to loved ones or for leaving them, loss of physical or mental function, anger at the unfairness of the diagnosis and the unrelenting vulnerability it brings, and fear of the unknown.

“Often when we treat anxiety disorders in the community, we help people test whether their beliefs are actually true and how bad their worst-case scenarios could actually be,” Arch says. “But in advanced cancer, people’s worst-case scenarios are often realistic, so we’re looking at how we can take a different approach.”

Arch currently is leading two ongoing studies focused on mental and emotional health in advanced cancer. One study, funded by a CU Cancer Center pilot grant, looks at adapting a written exposure therapy originally developed by Denise Sloan, PhD, and Brian Marx, PhD, for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Arch is studying an adaptation specific to the traumatic stress those with advanced cancer can experience.

“What this written exposure therapy does is ask people with PTSD to write about the most traumatic event across five sessions,” Arch explains. “They write as if it’s a story with a beginning, middle, and end. They write factual details, but also their feelings, thoughts, and beliefs that are occurring during and after the event.

“In advanced cancer, people often are most fearing the future and not what happened in the past,” she continues. “So, in consultation with Dr. Sloan, we are having people identify and write about their worst-case future scenario.”

Arch says the 18 study participants so far enrolled have written about having to say goodbye to their children, about being found unconscious and dying alone, about embarrassing physical symptoms and loss of control, about abandoning beloved pets, and other worst-case fears.

“We ask them to imagine the image or event or situation that’s most haunting them, and have them write for two or three sessions about that event, incorporating their deepest feelings,” Arch explains. “Then we ask them to evaluate whether that worst-case scenario is actually realistic–is that actually going to happen, based on what you know? If it is realistic, we spend several more sessions writing about how to cope with it, and if it’s not realistic, we then ask them to write about what is.”

The intervention is happening via telehealth, so people from across Colorado are able to participate. “It’s different than journaling, because we’re having them identify a specific worst-case event and write systematically from a very powerful writing prompt,” Arch says. “Then we’re able to coach them and give them feedback between sessions. We don’t have data yet, but anecdotally we’re seeing the effect of people putting their fears on paper and not just having to live with them inside their heads. It’s not an easy treatment because it requires people to name their deepest fears about cancer, but we’re hopeful.”

Leading multi-faceted research

Arch also is leading a larger study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, in which people with stage 4 solid tumors of any cancer type who are experiencing elevated anxiety, distress, or depression symptoms are randomized to receive an online Zoom group intervention. This behavioral approach is based on acceptance and commitment therapy, and one of its aims is to help people “connect with who they are and what’s important to them outside of cancer,” Arch explains.

The sessions are led by trained social workers, which is especially important because it has become increasingly common for people who receive a cancer diagnosis to seek information from unvalidated online sources or to join online support communities that are not moderated by trained professionals, Arch says.

Kilbourn also acknowledges that while the internet has evolved as a vital source of information and support for those living with advanced cancer, it can impact their mental and emotional health as well.

“The internet has certainly made some things more accessible, but now the challenge is how clinicians advise people what to look at and what not to look at,” Kilbourn says. “How do we help people judge whether something is valid or efficacious, especially people dealing with late-stage cancer, where there may not be many treatment options?

“People may be hearing stories about successful treatments, stories that may not even be accurate, and feeling bad that they’re not responding that well themselves, or they may be participating in these online or social media communities that only talk about the worst-case scenarios without recognizing all of the folks who are thriving after cancer. These types of things can really bias people’s perceptions of their disease, potential treatments, and the side effects. They are creating inaccurate ideas about what ‘should’ be happening.”

The challenges of cancer treatment and cancer survivorship are among the many areas that researchers are studying to better understand. They are working to develop interventions that address the specific types of mental and emotional distress experienced by those with different types of cancer. Some research is even working to understand how mental health can be impacted by physiological factors.

Kilbourn and Grigsby, as well as CU Cancer Center member Virginia Borges, MD, contributed to research published in November 2022 that explored associations between chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, disruption in the diversity and community composition of the gut microbiome, and self-reported cognitive impairment, anxiety, and depression. The data gathered in the study were consistent with the hypothesis that the composition of the gut microbiome impacts a woman’s experience with breast cancer and treatment, and they suggest that microbiome-based interventions have the potential to improve quality of life outcomes in women receiving treatment for breast cancer.

“What you’re feeling in your head and your heart can be just as profound as what you’re feeling in the rest of your body.”

Giving space to feelings

Kilbourn also is contributing to research on how interventions can address racial and economic disparities associated with the mental and emotional health impacts of a cancer diagnosis, including a stepped-care intervention to reduce disparities in mental health services among rural underserved lung and head and neck cancer patients. This study is led by Evelinn Borrayo, PhD, associate director of community outreach and engagement in the CU Cancer Center.

“There are so many more targeted therapies that help people to live longer, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier for doctors to predict how much longer,” Arch says. “People may be living longer, but with greater uncertainty. They may be many months or years into survivorship, but they may be worrying, ‘When is this going to come back?’”

A significant portion of this ongoing research is benefitted by changing norms in how late-stage cancer is not only studied and treated, but talked about, says Fischer, who also conducts palliative care research. There’s a growing awareness of the need to discuss not just the physical symptoms, but the mental and emotional ones.

“One of the things we encourage our fellows and trainees to watch is an excerpt from the movie ‘Inside Out’ where Bing Bong’s rocket gets shoved over the edge at the dump, and Sadness is saying, ‘It must be really hard,’ and Joy’s telling her, ‘You’re making it worse!’” Fischer says. “It’s the idea that we have to give people space to feel what they’re feeling, that when you have cancer, what you’re feeling in your head and your heart can be just as profound as what you’re feeling in the rest of your body.”

“It’s the idea that we have to give people space to feel what they’re feeling.”

Studying Psychedelics to Treat Psychiatric Distress in Late-Stage Cancer

By Rachel Sauer

The effects of cancer are not just physical, especially in advanced stages of the disease. People living with a cancer diagnosis may experience depression, anxiety, and fear, or feel demoralized by the weight of new and unanticipated burdens.

While the majority of cancer interventions focus on treating or preventing the physical aspects of the disease, a growing body of research is studying drug interventions to address the psychiatric and existential distress that can result from a cancer diagnosis.

One such intervention is controlled-dose psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic found in some varieties of mushrooms.

Stacy Fischer, MD, co-leader of cancer prevention and control at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, and her research partner Jim Grigsby, PhD, a professor of psychology at CU Denver, along with researchers at New York University, are leading a groundbreaking study focused on psilocybinassisted psychotherapy in advanced cancer.

The randomized, double-blind study is one of the first of its kind to receive funding support from the National Cancer Institute. It will evaluate the efficacy and psychological mechanisms of single-dose psilocybin-assisted therapy to treat psychiatric and existential distress in people with latestage cancer.

Understanding psilocybin

If the term “psilocybin” is unfamiliar, the term “magic mushroom” probably isn’t. There’s fraught cultural baggage around a psychedelic drug more commonly associated with the counterculture and summer music festivals.

Fischer and Grigsby acknowledge that studying psilocybin as a cancer intervention can mean treading lightly through potential minefields that have nothing to do with science. However, “we’re not talking about taking a handful of mushrooms and heading to a Phish concert,” Fischer says. “We’re talking about a very controlled intervention that includes a guided dosing session where patients who are participating are encouraged to look inward to examine what comes up for them.”

The research is happening at a watershed time, when a lot of cultural conversation is happening around psychedelic drugs. In November 2022, Colorado voters passed the Natural Medicine Health Act, which decriminalizes possessing, growing, and gifting mushrooms containing psilocybin and psilocin statewide.

While psilocybin is currently listed in Schedule 1 of the U.S. Controlled Substances Act, in 2019 the FDA gave psilocybin a breakthrough therapy designation as a treatment for major depressive disorder and treatment-resistant depression.

Fischer emphasizes the importance of a rigorous scientific approach to studying psilocybin as a treatment for people with late-stage cancer and the need for peer-reviewed evidence to validate its use as a clinician-monitored therapy.

Addressing a gap in research

In the study, participants will be randomized into study drug and placebo groups, with participants in the study drug group receiving one 25-milligram dose of psilocybin delivered in conjunction with psychotherapy. Participants in the placebo group will receive 100 milligrams of niacin, a B vitamin that causes flushing and a warm feeling, in addition to a psychotherapy intervention.

Participants in both groups will receive six hours of preparatory psychotherapy prior to the single medication session and eight hours of follow-up psychotherapy after the guided dosing session. During the individual dosing session, each participant will be in the presence of two trained facilitators.

Hypothesizing improved quality of life

Fischer says that while some people may feel intimidated by the idea of taking a dose of a psychedelic drug, “there’s going to be a lot of preparation before the guided dosing session when they can talk through it—not just concerns they might be having about the treatment, but their anxiety or depression or anything else they’ve been experiencing.”

The immediate or acute hallucinogenic and mystical effects of the psilocybin, “what in layman’s terms we would describe as the ‘trip,’ generally last four to eight hours,” Grigsby explains. “However, we are hypothesizing that the benefits to anxiety and depression—improved quality of life, a perception of peace and meaning—will persist. It’s really fascinating to look at some of the previous research, with some of the follow-up as much as four years later, and participants are still saying it was one of the most profound, enduring things they’ve ever experienced.”

Growing Health and Wellness in the Garden

Jill Litt, PhD, led research demonstrating that participation in community gardening is associated with decreased cancer risk.

By Rachel Sauer

There’s a growing body of research supporting the satisfactions of gardening, from its positive impact as a mental health intervention to its association with improvement in cognitive function and reduction in stress, anger, and fatigue.

Anyone who’s ever dug their hands into soil and reaped a late-summer harvest can probably attest to what they have gained from the experience.

Now, a first-of-its-kind randomized controlled trial demonstrates that participation in community gardening is associated with decreased cancer risk.

University of Colorado Cancer Center member Jill Litt, PhD, a professor of environmental studies at CU Boulder, led research recently published in The Lancet Planetary Health and funded by the American Cancer Society showing an association between community gardening and an increase in fiber intake and physical activity, as well as reductions in stress and anxiety, factors demonstrated to reduce cancer and chronic disease risk.

“One of the things I love about this research is that it gives us scientifically sound evidence for something that a lot of people might just sense, which is that gardening is good for you,” explains Litt, who currently is in Barcelona, Spain, as a senior researcher at the Institute for Global Health.

Gathering data in the garden

Litt, an environmental epidemiologist, came to this work by first researching environmental toxins and cancer risk in Baltimore, Maryland. As she studied the clean-up and redevelopment of valuable urban land, and the policy decisions underlying whether and how green space was incorporated into the redevelopment, she gained perspective on how that land could potentially benefit communities.

After arriving at CU, she was contacted by Julie Marshall, PhD, professor emeritus of epidemiology in the Colorado School of Public Health, about an opportunity to partner on research with Denver Urban Gardens.

“Michael Buchenau, then-executive director of Denver Urban Gardens, said, ‘We have this system of urban gardens, we think it has benefits, but we haven’t studied it in a systematic, scientific way to gather data on health and well-being’” Litt recalls. “I was able to work with John Brett, who’s a nutritional anthropologist at CU Denver, and we generated some really fascinating pilot data.”

Supported by a K Award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Litt partnered with specialists in architecture, urban planning, urban design, land use, and social science to understand the health and social benefits of community gardening using a battery of mixed methods, including populationbased surveys in Denver.

“We were able to publish several papers, but the research still felt vulnerable to the limitations of observational studies,” Litt says. “So we proposed research that would be run like a drug trial, with the same adherence to blinding, quality control, and quality assurance procedures.”

Studying research outcomes

Litt worked closely with Cathy Bradley, PhD, deputy director of the CU Cancer Center, and other partners to push this research idea over the funding line. They developed a trial in which 291 adults from the Denver metro area were recruited and randomized to observer-blinded community gardening treatment and control groups. Participants were required to be at least 18 and to not have gardened in the previous two years, and researchers were masked to group allocation.

JILL LITT, PHD

Those in the community gardening group received seeds and seedlings, a free community garden plot, and an introductory gardening course. Those in the control group were asked to wait one year to start gardening, then received a garden plot as a thank-you for their participation. Participants in both groups took spring, autumn, and winter surveys about their nutritional intake, health status, social activities, nature engagement, and mental health; wore activity monitors; and provided body measurements. Participants’ average age was 41, more than half were from low-income households, and more than a third identified as Hispanic. The research happened in three one-year waves with approximately 100 participants in each wave, and researchers focused on three outcome areas: nutrition, physical activity, and mental health. In analyzing the data, Litt and her co-researchers found that study participants in the gardening group, compared with those in the control group, consumed 1.4 grams more fiber per day, did 5.8 more minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, and showed greater reductions in perceived stress and anxiety.

Gardening and wellness

“I feel really good about the rigor of this study,” Litt says. “We were so disciplined in how we conducted it, to the point that we had times where people were coming in for assessments and we had to intercept them at the door because they were carrying boxes of their bounty. On one hand, as a human being, that’s absolutely wonderful, but it was so important that we maintain our blinding.”

The data gathered in the research aligned with previous studies indicating that gardening is associated with improved health outcomes, including outcomes in risk factors for cancer. Litt says she would like to follow up with the research cohort, of which more than half continued gardening in the community plots and another quarter began gardening at home.

“Another thing I love about this research is the idea of ‘stealth health,’” Litt says. “In general, people don’t garden because they’re specifically saying, ‘I want to be healthy,’ but more because they want to be in contact with the earth and it makes them feel good. The thing we hear over and over is, ‘I want to get my hands dirty.’ I could tell you how to say that in probably 20 languages. It makes people feel good, and they enjoy the satisfaction of seeing things grow.

“If you look at self-determination theory and work from this idea of trying to find out what motivates people, what makes them tick, then gardening is a good example. Instead of lecturing people and telling them what to do, telling them to change their behaviors, if we start from a place of, ‘What do you like to do?’ then gardening becomes about just trying to be well.”

Finding a New Voice

Groundbreaking research led by Sana Karam, MD, PhD, shows potential to improve the standard of care for people with certain head and neck cancers.

By Rachel Sauer

Jane Hart is many things: extremely proud mom of Shelby, daughter extraordinaire and apple of Jane’s eye. Dog mom to Maizy, Taco, Winnie, and Walter. Collector of Talavera pottery. Unabashed “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” fan. A surprising 71 years old, because she looks at least 10 years younger.

Cancer survivor—stage 4 laryngeal cancer that necessitated a tracheostomy and laryngectomy, forcing her to relearn how to breathe and talk.

But here’s what Hart isn’t: bitter. Angry. Tending toward regret or hesitant to meet new people.

“I have been truly blessed,” she says, and not just because her scans now show no evidence of disease, or because her risk of cancer recurrence is low, or even because she has earned moments and days that she thought wouldn’t be hers when she received a cancer diagnosis in early 2021.

She counts herself blessed that she was the last participant enrolled in a clinical trial whose results show tremendous potential to improve the standard of care for patients diagnosed with a subset of head and neck cancers.

The recently published study, led by University of Colorado Cancer Center member Sana Karam, MD, PhD, vice chair of translational research in the CU School of Medicine, demonstrates that one cycle of the immunotherapy drug durvalumab, used in a specific time frame before surgery and in concert with radiation therapy, can stimulate a patient’s immune system to kill all or most of the cancer before surgery.

“We looked at the existing standard of care and said, ‘OK, patients are still not doing very well,’” Karam says. “We started looking at the time when patients are prepping for surgery as a window of opportunity to do something, to change the course of the disease. We gave this combination of one cycle of durvalumab and three sessions of radiation in high doses pre-operatively, and the response rate was out of this world.”

“The last thing I expected to hear”

Before a treatment response that exceeded all expectations, though, Hart was a bit hoarse.

She’d recently moved from Kansas to Denver to be closer to Shelby; she was enjoying building her life in Colorado; and initially she thought nothing of the hoarseness. She’d always been healthy.

“I used to smoke,” she says, “so I was thinking maybe it had something to do with that?”

In early 2021, it was enough of an issue that she met with an otolaryngologist, who let her know that one of her vocal cords had no blood flowing through it. Humans only have two that produce sound, so this was a huge concern. A scope and a biopsy followed, and then a stark diagnosis: stage 4 laryngeal cancer. Hart passed out in the doctor’s office after hearing it.

“My husband had lung cancer, but I had no family history,” she says. “That was the last thing I expected to hear. The only thing I could do was lay it on the Lord.”

She began working with a multidisciplinary care team that included Jessica McDermott, MD, deputy assistant director for diversity and inclusion in clinical research in the CU Cancer Center, and Julie Goddard, MD, an assistant professor of otolaryngology in the CU School of Medicine.

After meeting with Goddard to discuss the tracheostomy she would receive, Jane learned about the clinical trial Karam was leading, studying human papillomavirus-unrelated head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC). Jane’s diagnosis was an HNSCC, and she qualified for the trial.

Improving the standard of care

“One of my main goals is to improve the standard of care for our patients,” Karam says. “Imagine if our head and neck cancer patients didn’t have to go through some of what they currently do—the treatments that can have such a huge impact on their quality of life.”

For Hart, the tracheostomy and laryngectomy had such an impact. She remembers seeing the Centers for Disease Control's “Tips from Former Smokers” campaign commercials on TV, featuring people discussing the realities of daily life after having those procedures.

“I would never have thought that would be me,” Hart says. She received a tracheostomy, or surgical opening created through the neck into the trachea, in March 2021, near the time she learned she was the last qualifier for the HNSCC trial—which she compares to winning the golden ticket. She received one cycle of durvalumab and three sessions of radiation in high doses.

“I would have had to have chemotherapy if I hadn’t received the immunotherapy,” she says. “My husband had to do chemo with his lung cancer, so I saw what the side effects could be from that. Because of the immunotherapy, I didn’t have them.”

In May 2021, she had a laryngectomy, or surgery to remove part or all of the larynx (commonly called the voice box), with Goddard. The procedure is considered standard of care, “and they did it out of precaution,” Hart explains. “But during the surgery they saw no tumor. I’d had a complete response. I know Dr. Karam hopes that in the future, everybody will be able to keep their voice box.”

“All of us—whether surgeons, medical oncologists, or radiation oncologists— need to be doing whatever is in our patients’ best interest, beyond what we learned in residency.”

Living a new version of life

Hart was in the hospital for a month following her laryngectomy, working with speech therapists and respiratory therapists to relearn how to breathe, speak, and live a new version of her life.

“Everybody was amazing for her,” says Shelby, a physical therapist. “She loved Liz, her speech therapist, and Tom, her respiratory therapist who walked with her every day.”

Shelby even managed a few canine visits for Hart in the hospital courtyard and helped her get settled back into their shared Denver townhome, where Hart walks at least an hour a day on a treadmill.

“Every doctor, every student, every nurse, even the housekeepers were smiling angels on my cancer journey,” Hart says. “Seeing Liz, my speech therapist, every day, showing me that I can speak and I can be normal was so powerful.”

Full-circle research

Another significant outcome of Karam’s research, found through translational analysis of participant blood samples, is that T cell memory response may be able to tell clinicians before surgery whether a patient will develop long-term memory to prevent the cancer from recurring.

Hart was among the 89% of expansion cohort study participants who, after receiving the optimal radiation dose, showed major pathological response or complete response to the treatment. This outcome far exceeded Karam’s expectations and demonstrates the tremendous potential for specifically timed immunotherapy treatment for HNSCC, which currently have a fiveyear survival below 50%.

“All of us—whether surgeons, medical oncologists, or radiation oncologists—need to be doing whatever is in our patients’ best interest, beyond what we learned in residency,” Karam says. “If there’s now a way to save a patient’s voice box, for instance, that’s critical. Jane has experienced a devastating life change. What’s inspiring, though, is that she has done it with such positivity and with an attitude that her experiences will benefit those who come after her.”

“The moment I met Dr. Karam, all the unknowns vanished,” Hart says. “She was my doctor but also a friend. How lucky I am to have such daily joy from the greatest team.”

Balancing Science and Medicine to Benefit Lung Cancer Patient Care

Ross Camidge, MD, PhD, was recognized as a highly cited researcher, underscoring his commitment to multidisciplinary, holistic care that bridges the lab and the clinic.

By Rachel Sauer

When his mom fell off a ladder on New Year’s Eve a number of years ago, after deciding it was as good a time as any to clean the leaves from her gutters, one of the first things Ross Camidge, MD, PhD, did after she got home from the hospital was to take her pulse.

Perhaps because it was one of the rowdiest nights of the year in Edinburgh, Scotland, she had been met in the emergency room with a bit of a wink–“Had a little too much, did you?”–and sent for immediate surgery to repair her broken hip.

“At no point was she asked why she fell off the ladder,” Camidge recalls. “So, when I talked with her after I’d traveled up from London and she said she didn’t remember falling, I took her pulse and there were these huge gaps in her pulse rate. The same day I contacted her primary doctor and suggested that she needed a pacemaker as soon as possible.”

Of all the questions that have steered and shaped his career, “Why is this happening?” has carried a profound weight, guiding not only how Camidge treats and connects with patients, but how he delves into research that aims to answer the fundamental questions of why: Why are these side effects occurring? Why is the tumor behaving this way? Why is one patient responding while another one isn’t?

Camidge, a University of Colorado Cancer Center member and the Joyce Zeff Chair in Lung Cancer Research in the CU School of Medicine, was recently named a Clarivate highly cited researcher in the field of clinical medicine, the sixth time he has received this recognition. Analytics company Clarivate annually names highly cited researchers–the top 1% of people worldwide–who have “demonstrated significant and broad influence reflected in their publication of multiple highly cited papers over the last decade.”

Since beginning his medical career as a student at the University of Oxford, and his research career at the University of Cambridge, Camidge has pursued a holistic approach to diagnosing and treating cancer. It is one that balances science and humanity, recognizing that at the center of all cancer research outcomes are individuals living with a life-altering diagnosis.

Learning science and medicine

Before he was an internationally recognized lung cancer researcher, Camidge was a stubborn and questioning student charging through British public education. He didn’t grow up in a particularly science-focused family–his father was a sales rep for an electrical switch gear company and his mother was a dentist–but “I always had some vague idea that I could see things that other people couldn’t see,” he says. “Which could also mean I was crazy.” He remembers being in class at age 12 or 13, when everyone else was saying an answer was X, “but I would be saying it’s Y, and here’s why, and occasionally I would be right.”

Following a gap year, Camidge began studying medicine at Oxford at age 19. Coming into his third year there, however, when the program usually pivots toward hospital attachments and clinical work, Camidge “realized two things at about the same time. Firstly, that I was so grossly emotionally immature that I probably shouldn’t be seeing patients. I also wasn’t quite done with finding out the limits of my brain in a purely scientific sense, so I put off my clinical training and went to Cambridge to study molecular biology.”

Working in the famous Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology, which boasts a longer list of Nobel Prize winners than several countries–including Jim Watson and Francis Crick for defining the structure of DNA and Fred Sanger for determining the entire sequence of amino acids in insulin–Camidge experienced significant imposter syndrome.

“That’s when it hit me, ‘Yeah, you’re not at this level,’ he remembers. “During my Oxford medicine studies, I was reading and memorizing the results of scientific experiments, but I wasn’t doing them with my own hands. Once I jettisoned the idea that success was somehow guaranteed to me, or mentorship was somehow guaranteed to me–when I hit bottom–then things got better.”

Returning to Oxford Medical School older than the rest of his cohort, and having taken on board some “good failures” along the way, he began his clinical medical training with the both the emotional intelligence he felt he’d previously lacked and a scientist’s perspective on medicine.

“A future where a cancer diagnosis is just a footnote, not a headline in someone’s life, is the future we all want to be aiming for.„

ROSS CAMIDGE, MD, PHD

Pursuing oncology

Camidge enjoyed almost every specialty he tried during his clinical training (except surgery; he’s been known to faint at the sight of blood when not in doctor mode), but it was in oncology that he began seeing the nexus of scientific molecular biology and patient care.

“It was holistic, and that really drew me,” he says. “Cancer overshadows everything else in life. As an oncologist, you work with people from different specialties and disciplines, and clinical research–asking questions directly at the patient level–is baked into the model. Nobody in oncology is like, ‘We’re done, we’ve sorted cancer,’ and that was very appealing from the get-go. There’s always the perception that you can do better.”

After working at hospitals in England and Scotland, Camidge became the test pilot for a new UK program that combined medical oncology with clinical pharmacology and drug development. As part of that training, Camidge spent 18 months on attachment as a company physician at AstraZeneca. The experience helped him see past the traditional “us vs. them” mentality that colors many interactions between medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.

During his time with AstraZeneca, the head of oncology at Cambridge University approached Camidge with an opportunity to complete a fully funded, two-year exchange fellowship in the United States. After meeting Gail Eckhardt, MD, former head of the Division of Medical Oncology in the CU School of Medicine, at a conference, and learning more about the growing amount of drug development happening at CU, Camidge arrived in Colorado in October 2005.

Even though he had been told over and over that he shouldn’t combine new drug development with an interest in lung cancer because the patient mortality rate was too high, that’s exactly what he did, carrying on the torch lit by Paul Bunn, MD, who largely developed the lung cancer program at CU.

Cancer changes everything

After becoming a faculty member in 2007, Camidge eventually was named director of the Thoracic Oncology Program, helping to grow it into a nationally and internationally recognized center that accrues about 40% of lung cancer patients into clinical trials–more than double the rate of the next best academic lung cancer program in the country and more than 10 times the national average.

Camidge’s research in Colorado has focused on the development of new treatments and new insights into the understanding of non-small cell lung cancer. Many of his highly cited papers are the culmination of developing very targeted therapies for different subtypes of lung cancer based on specific genetic changes in the cancers.

“What has been exciting is doing research in the gaps between clinical trials,” Camidge says. “Every time you see something that no one has seen before and prove it’s real, and then dig down to ask why it happens and how it can help people is hugely exciting.”

In addition to patient care and research, Camidge is committed to mentoring early-career researchers and clinicians, which he is able to do locally, as well as nationally and internationally, in his role as director of the Academic Thoracic Oncology Medical Investigators Consortium.

“For me, this is about taking whatever I’ve learned, good and bad, and trying to help other people have a slightly easier task and make the right decisions for their career,” he says. “Nobody in oncology, myself included, is content with the level of oncology care, so there’s always a push for daily improvement, daily research to try and prove that this is better than that.

“Oncology at its best is very forward-thinking, just trying to push the envelope constantly with a big-picture view of patient care. Cancer is urgent, and a diagnosis of cancer suddenly strips away everything extraneous. But a future where a cancer diagnosis is just a footnote, not a headline in someone’s life, is the future we all want to be aiming for.”

Honoring Bright Minds

Endowed chairs fund vital research at the University of Colorado Cancer Center

By Greg Glasgow

Philanthropy is critical to the mission of the University of Colorado Cancer Center. Donors who are able to make gifts of any amount help CU Cancer Center members contribute to breakthrough research and improved patient outcomes.

Individuals and organizations with an interest in certain research areas or types of cancer sometimes choose to fund an endowed chair at the CU Cancer Center—a named position funded by an endowment that provides the chairholder with sustainable financial resources, allowing them to conduct research in a specified area knowing they will have the distribution from the endowment available to use each year.

“Endowed chairs are extremely important to the CU Cancer Center because they allow us to attract top talent, and they also allow us to retain top talent,” says Richard Schulick, MD, MBA, director of the CU Cancer Center and the Aragón/GonzalezGíustí Endowed Chair of Surgery at the CU School of Medicine. “They eliminate the necessity of finding monetary support and free up the chairholder’s time to accomplish research and discover new cures.”

CU Cancer Center leader Eduardo Davila, PhD, holds the Amy Davis Chair of Basic Human Immunology, which he says allows him to devote his time to finding new ways to treat patients.

“Philanthropic support makes it possible for me to focus my attention on developing and optimizing the manufacturing of a new type of cellular therapy on campus,” says Davila, associate director of cancer research training and education coordination at the CU Cancer Center.

RICHARD SCHULICK, MD, MBA

“Endowed chairs are extremely important to the CU Cancer Center because they allow us to attract top talent, and they also allow us to retain top talent.”

Eduardo Davila, PhD; James DeGregori, PhD; and William Robinson, MD, PhD, speak at the 2019 Endowed Chairs Celebration.

“Philanthropic support also allows me the time to develop cuttingedge education and mentoring programs to train the next generation of cancer researchers and oncologists.”

Endowed chairs are considered the highest level of achievement in academic and medical institutions. Chairs are highly visible and prestigious symbols of academic status and a mark of distinction in higher education. The number of endowed chairs is also a mark of distinction for institutions.

FUNDING PREVENTION AND CONTROL EFFORTS

The Denver-based organization CancerCure was created 25 years ago by neighbors Carolyn Fancher and Midge Wallace, both of whom had faced breast cancer, to raise money for the CU Cancer Center. With another neighbor, Nina Ahbe, Fancher and Wallace fund the CancerCure/AMC Cancer Fund Endowed Chair for Cancer Prevention and Control, currently held by Evelinn Borrayo, PhD.

“Knowing these funds are going toward attracting top talent like Dr. Borrayo is very gratifying,” Fancher, Wallace, and Ahbe say.

“Her goal to decrease cancer disparities and make sure everyone in Colorado has equal access to cancer prevention and treatment is the direction we want our philanthropy to support.”

Eduardo Davila, PhD Amy Davis Endowed Chair in Basic Human Immunology

Joaquin Espinosa, PhD Anna and John J. Sie Endowed Chair for the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome

Richard Schulick, MD, MBA Aragon/Gonzalez-Giusti Endowed Chair in Surgery

Thomas Flaig, MD Bobby Rifkin Endowed Chair in Prostate Cancer Research

Rajeev Vibhakar, MD, PhD, MPH Cancer League of Colorado Chair

Evelinn Borrayo, PhD CancerCure/AMC Cancer Fund Endowed Chair for Cancer Prevention and Control

Mary Weiser-Evans, PhD Charles Boettcher II Endowed Chair in Atherosclerosis Research

Terry Fry, MD Charles C. Gates Endowed Chair at the Gates Institute

Breelyn Wilky, MD Cheryl Bennett and McNeilly Family Endowed Chair in Sarcoma Research

Eric Pietras, PhD Cleo Meador and George R. Scott Endowed Chair in Hematology

Sally Stabler, MD Cleo Scott and Mitchell Vincent Allen Endowed Chair of Medicine in Hematology Research

James DeGregori, PhD

Courtenay C. and Lucy Patten Davis Endowed Chair in Lung Cancer Research

John Mitchell, MD

Courtenay C. and Lucy Patten Davis Endowed Chair in Surgical Thoracic Oncology

Antonio Jimeno, MD, PhD

Daniel and Janet Mordecai Endowed Chair in Cancer Stem Cell Research

Richard Duke, PhD David and Margaret Turley Grohne Chair in Clinical Cancer Research

Linda Cook, PhD

David F. and Margaret Turley Grohne Chair In Cancer Prevention

Curtis Henry, PhD David F. and Margaret Turley Grohne Chair in Translational Cancer Research

Christine Walsh, MD, MS Don and Arlene Mohler Johnson Family Endowed Chair in Ovarian Cancer

Awaiting Appointment

Dr. William Robinson Endowed Chair in Cancer Research

T. Rajendra Kumar, PhD

Edgar L., Patricia M. Makowski and Family Endowed Chair in Obstetrics

Ann Thor, MD

Edith B. Todd and James C. Todd, MD, Chair of Pathology

Kian Behbakht, MD, MBA

Emily McClintock Addlesperger Endowed Chair in Gynecologic Oncology

Alexis Leal, MD

Gina Guy Endowed Chair in Pancreatic Cancer Research

Debashis Ghosh, MS, PhD Grohne-Stapp Endowed Chair for Cancer Research

Awaiting Appointment

Harlow Endowed Chair for Cancer Research

Trevor Williams, PhD

Ira C. Brownlie Endowed Chair in Craniofacial Molecular Biology

Dennis Roop, PhD

John S. Gates Endowed Chair in Stem Cell Biology

These endowed chairs are held by CU Cancer Center members to support cancer prevention, research, and care.

EDUARDO DAVILA, PHD

EVELINN BORRAYO, PHD

Jennifer Diamond, MD

Joyce M. Brown Chair for Developmental Therapeutics in Women’s Cancers

D. Ross Camidge, MD, PhD

Joyce Zeff Endowed Chair in Lung Cancer Research

Saketh Guntupalli, MD

Karen M. Jennison Endowed Chair in Gynecologic Oncology

Sachin Wani, MD

Katy O. and Paul M. Rady Endowed Chair in Esophageal Cancer Research

Kenneth Tyler, MD

Louise Baum Endowed Chair for Neurology

Melissa Haendel, PhD

Marsico Chair for Excellence in Data Science

Sana Karam, MD

Marsico Chair for Excellence in Head and Neck Cancer Research

Anthony Elias, MD

Martha Cannon Dear Endowed Chair for Breast Cancer Research

Bryan Haugen, MD

Mary Rossick Kern and Jerome Kern Endowed Chair in Thyroid Tumor Research

William Robinson, MD, PhD

Monroe and Rella Rifkin Endowed Chair in Cancer Research

Marco Del Chiaro, MD

Morton and Sandra Saffer Endowed Chair in Personalized Cancer Treatment and Oncology Leadership

Miria Kano, PhD

Morton and Sandra Saffer Endowed Cancer Research Chair

Awaiting Appointment

Morton Cohen Cancer Center Endowed Chair

Craig Jordan, PhD

Nancy Carroll Allen Endowed Chair in Hematology Research

Cathy Bradley, PhD

Paul A. Bunn, Jr. Endowed Chair in Cancer Research

Paul Bunn, MD

Paul Bunn/James Dudley Endowed Chair in Cancer Research

Madeleine Kane, MD, PhD

Paul R. O’Hara II Endowed Chair in Esophageal Cancer

Sharon Pine, PhD

Pia and Fred R. Hirsch Endowed Chair in Lung Cancer Research

Sean Davis, MD, PhD

Rifkin and Bennis Endowed Chair in Cancer Bioinformatics

Virginia Borges, MD

Robert F. and Patricia Young Connor Endowed Chair in Young Women’s Breast Cancer Research

Daniel Pollyea, MD, MS

Robert H. Allen, M.D, Endowed Chair in Hematology Research

Clayton Smith, MD Ruth and Ralph Seligman Endowed Chair in Hematology

Christopher Lieu, MD Sohrab Amini, MD, FACS, Endowed Chair in Pancreatic Cancer Research

Robert A. Meguid, MD, MPH

Stan and Mary Ellen Cope Family Endowed Chair in Thoracic Surgery

Hatim Sabaawy, MD, PhD Stapp Endowed Chair for Cancer Research

Taizo Nakano, MD

Taru Hays, MD, Endowed Chair in Pediatric Hematology

Josh Thurman, MD

Temple Hoyne Buell and National Kidney Foundation Endowed Chair

Brandon McMahon, MD The David, Sam, and Gabrielle Seligman Endowed Chair in Hematology

York Miller, MD Thomas L. Petty Chair for Pulmonary Research

Julia Cooper, PhD

University of Colorado Medicine Endowed Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics

Maryam Asgari, MD, MPH

University of Colorado Medicine Endowed Chair in Dermatology

Heide Ford, PhD

University of Colorado Medicine Endowed Chair in Pharmacology

The position is equally important to the chairholders as it is to the donors.

“The CancerCure endowed chair is an honor for me to hold. It has allowed me to focus time on expanding the mission of the CU Cancer Center to communities disproportionally affected by cancer,” says Borrayo, associate director of community outreach and engagement.

“In particular, I have focused my research on improving the timeliness and quality of cancer care for medically underserved patients who reside in remote rural and frontier communities.”

With a philanthropic commitment of $2 million or more, an endowed chair benefactor plays a critical partnership role in advancing strategic priorities and accelerating progress in specific areas within the CU Cancer Center in perpetuity. Endowed chairs recognize distinguished leaders in their fields and provide the time to dream, to innovate, and to change the very course of tomorrow’s health care.

“Philanthropic support also allows me the time to develop cutting-edge education and mentoring programs to train the next generation of cancer researchers and oncologists.”

VISION OF EXCELLENCE

CU Cancer Center member Sachin Wani, MD, holder of the Katy O. and Paul M. Rady Endowed Chair in Esophageal Cancer Research, in 2022 received a transformational gift from the Radys in honor of Katy Rady’s brother, Paul O’Hara, who was treated for his esophageal cancer at the CU Cancer Center before succumbing to his illness in 2015. Wani is using the funds to create an Esophageal and Gastric Center of Excellence at the CU Cancer Center.

“When we started these discussions several years ago to establish a center of excellence, our goal was to be one of the top five esophageal centers in the country,” Wani says. “I’ve revised that. We’ve got to be the top esophageal center in the country, period, and we won’t stop until we achieve that goal.”

NEXT GENERATION OF CANCER CARE

CU Cancer Center leadership recently started a new type of chair, the Rising Star Chair, which highlights the CU Cancer Center’s commitment to ensuring that diversity, equity, and inclusion are reinforced in research, and that members of traditionally underrepresented communities gain opportunities to conduct groundbreaking cancer research.

One goal of the Rising Star Chair is to support researchers from traditionally underrepresented populations in each of the cancer center’s four research programs. These opportunities will support up-and-coming researchers who are doing groundbreaking work, with funding directed toward ensuring that the CU Cancer Center is competitive with larger cancer centers and able to retain top future cancer leaders in Colorado.

“We created the Rising Star position to ensure we could attract the very best talent and diversify the research faculty,” explains Cathy Bradley, PhD, MPA, deputy director of the CU Cancer Center.

The first of these chairs is held by Channing Tate, PhD, MPH, in the Cancer Prevention and Control program.

“I feel very blessed to have this Rising Star position and, as a CU Cancer Center mentored member, access to some of the best mentorship in the country,” Tate says. “This opportunity is helping me become a better investigator to build and launch my research career. My dream is that the research we do, the tools we create, become the gold standard for how this work is done at a national level.”

“When we started these discussions several years ago to establish a center of excellence, our goal was to be one of the top five esophageal centers in the country. I’ve revised that. We’ve got to be the top esophageal center in the country, period, and we won’t stop until we achieve that goal."

CHANNING TATE, PHD, MPH

SACHIN WANI, MD

SUMMER 2023

www.coloradocancercenter.org

C3: Collaborating to Conquer Cancer

Published twice a year by University of Colorado Cancer Center for friends, members, and the community. (No research money has been used for this publication).

Contact the communications team: Jessica Cordova | Jessica.2.Cordova@cuanschutz.edu  Greg Glasgow | Gregory.Glasgow@cuanschutz.edu

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THE IMPORTANCE OF MENTAL HEALTH IN CANCER CARE

THE MESSAGE

FROM THE DIRECTOR

RICHARD SCHULICK, MD, MBA DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO CANCER CENTER

As cancer doctors, surgeons, and researchers, we have gotten very good at treating the physical symptoms of cancer and addressing a patient’s physical condition. One of the things we historically have not done as well is to address our patients’ mental health and well-being. We’ve improved over the past couple of decades, but we still have room to grow.

There are many stressful things people can go through in life, but getting a diagnosis of cancer and working to deal with everything that comes after has to be one of the toughest. Every day I see how that stress and worry affects the lives of my patients. Dr. Fischer’s research is pushing the boundaries of how we can help cancer patients with their mental health.

Other CU Cancer Center researchers are looking into emotional and mental health interventions as well, including Kristin Kilbourn, PhD, who is involved in the training of counselors and therapists providing psychosocial support to rural and historically marginalized individuals diagnosed with lung or head and neck cancer, and Joanna Arch, PhD, who is leading two ongoing studies focused on mental and emotional health in advanced cancer.

ARAGÓN/GONZALEZ-GUÍSTÍ ENDOWED CHAIR OF SURGERY, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SCHOOL OF

MEDICINE

That’s why I’m so excited about the work being done by University of Colorado Cancer Center member Stacy Fischer, MD, co-leader of our Cancer Prevention and Control Program. As described in this issue’s story “Understanding Cancer in the Mind and the Heart” (page 4), Fischer is researching the use of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to address depression and anxiety in advanced cancer.

“As humans, we are spiritual and emotional as well as physical beings, and that’s how cancer needs to be treated,” Fischer says in the story. “We can have suffering across all those domains of who we are, but it’s not easy to ask about and not easy to address. As cancer treatment has evolved into a more whole-person approach, though, we’ve recognized that mental and emotional distress is a huge problem.”

While we’re on the topic of mental health, be sure to read this issue’s cover story, “Growing Health and Wellness in the Garden,” which details research by CU Cancer Center member Jill Litt, PhD, that shows that community gardening reduces stress and anxiety. How appropriate for summer.

As patient-centered care continues to be emphasized at cancer centers and clinics around the world, the importance of addressing the mental health and well-being of our patients and their families will continue to grow. I am proud to see CU Cancer Center researchers at the forefront of this important work.

A Cancer Center Designated by the National Cancer Institute

Comprehensive Cancer Center