The International Thyroid Oncology Group (ITOG) Board of Directors has selected Fay Fletcher Kerner Endowed Chair Herbert Chen, M.D., FACS, and Assistant Professor Renata Jaskula-Sztul, Ph.D., as the 2021 Robert F. Gagel ITOG Discovery Award recipients.

The ITOG Correlative Science Committee received several high-quality proposals, which were reviewed and scored by its members. Chen and Jaskula-Sztul’s project “Pharmacological upregulation of SSRT2 for imaging and therapy of medullary thyroid cancer” was the finalist for the award.

The $100,000 award, granted over a two-year period, consists of $50,000 per year. The pair will be expected to present a progress report to the ITOG membership at the annual meeting after one year and at the completion of the project.

Jaskula-Sztul is delighted to have been named a PI on the fully-funded project.

“Our research aims to further support imaging and therapy for thyroid cancer,” said Jaskula-Sztul. “Our UAB Neuroendocrine Lab is fully-equipped and ready to kick off the project. We look forward to translating our results into potential clinical trials, in the future.”

The mission of the ITOG is to catalyze a cure for the most challenging thyroid cancers through the collaborative efforts of our unique multidisciplinary team of leading physicians, scientists, and advocates to design, coordinate, and prioritize state-of-the-art clinical trials and correlative science.