Biochemistry MD/PhD student Marek Zorawski was awarded a Predoctoral Fellowship in Drug Discovery from the PhRMA Foundation. The PhRMA Foundation awarded 21 early-career researchers a total of nearly $1.7 million in 2024 fellowships and grants focused on drug discovery and drug delivery research. As PhRMA Foundation President Dr. Amy M. Miller, PhD, puts it: “The PhRMA Foundation’s expert review committees selected an outstanding batch of early-career researchers focused on advancing the frontiers of drug development research. These scientists are exploring topics such as engineering new methods for better delivery of drugs in the body and exploring novel targets for potential treatments for conditions including cancer, autoimmune diseases, high blood pressure, and more.”
Marek’s research will focus on discovering new small molecule drugs for a subtype of treatment-resistant prostate cancer. Specifically, he notes, “For many patients, the standard-of-care treatments we provide for prostate cancer in the clinic result in resistance to these drugs. In a substantial number of cases, this resistance happens via an RNA splice variant of the androgen receptor, called AR-V7, which has been shown to have poor patient outcomes. My work focuses on targeting the RNA splicing that leads to generation of AR-V7 so that we can circumvent this resistance and re-sensitize a patient’s prostate cancer to the standard-of-care medicines we know work well.”
Marek hopes the development of these drugs will not only help patients with treatment-resistant prostate cancer but will hopefully pave a way toward the development of new RNA-targeting medicines for cancer patients more broadly.