Progress is Power!

From the desk of MRF CEO Kyleigh LiPira:

March was truly groundbreaking for melanoma patients and their loved ones as a new drug (Opdualag™) has been FDA approved for unresectable or metastatic melanoma. Opdualag, a LAG-3 antibody called relatlimab, has been approved in a fixed-dose combination with the PD-1 inhibitor Opdivo® (nivolumab), introducing a new category of immunotherapy combination treatments. Studies have shown that it more than doubles the time patients with previously untreated advanced melanoma can live without disease progression compared to Opdivo alone and that it cut the risk of death by 20% over Opdivo, an improvement that narrowly missed statistical significance but was “clinically meaningful.”

Also this month, the FDA announced an Investigational New Drug approval for TALEN®-Edited Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) in unresectable or metastatic melanoma and Stage III or IV Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. The MRF is grateful to patient advocates like Katie and Jamie who participated in clinical trials that helped drive progress and more options for melanoma patients. Further trials are expected to open later this year, offering more patients access to this therapy. Finally, there is continued excitement in the rare subtype community over the February approval of Kimmtrak® – the first-ever FDA approved drug for metastatic uveal melanoma. In the coming weeks and months, the MRF will be building out learning opportunities for our community to learn more about what these approvals mean along with empowering and educating patients.

In this issue, get to know our recent medical student award grantees who are helping to advance treatments for the melanoma community. Progress is Power!

With gratitude,

Congratulations to our 2022 Medical Student Grant Recipients!

In 2022, the MRF is proud to award 11 Medical Student Research Awards. These 1-year, $3,000 grants support medical students who are interested in pursuing a career in melanoma research by funding research proposals on a variety of topics pertaining to melanoma prevention, diagnosis and treatment. All of the 2022 Medical Student Awards were funded through the generosity of individual donors. The 2022 grant recipients, listed in the order their photos appear above, are included below. Click on each proposal title for more information about their research:

• Rewan Abdelwahab, "Racial, Sex, and Socioeconomic Inequities in Melanoma Surgical Interventions & Outcomes: A Multivariate Analysis"
• Nneoma Adaku, "Identifying Cell-Intrinsic Mechanisms of Melanoma Suppression by APOE Variants"
• Ashley Anderson, "Molecular Cell State Analysis of Hybrid Cells across the Uveal Melanoma Metastatic Cascade"
• Jungsoo Chang, "Nanoparticle Delivered Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy for Treatment of Cutaneous and Metastatic Melanoma"
• Emily Cowen, "Investigating Automated Melanoma Screening for Newly Acquired Lesions"
• Salma El-Behaedi, "Incidences and Clinical Characteristics of Subsequent Primary Cutaneous Malignancy Following First Primary Cancer Diagnosis"
• Lauren Morehead, "Harnessing Resveratrol Mediated Upregulation of MHC-I to Potentiate Melanoma Immunotherapy"
• Guillermo Omar Rangel Rivera, "Mechanisms Underlying Effectiveness of PI3Kd-Inhibited T Cells for Adoptive Cell Transfer Therapy"
• Sarem Rashid, "The Causal Role of Skin Pigmentation in Melanoma: A Machine-Learning Based Gene Prioritization Study"
• Tiffaney Tran, "Exploring the Association of County-Level Social Vulnerability and Racial/Ethnic Minority Status with Stage-Specific Incidence of Melanoma and Cancer-Specific Mortality for Melanoma Patients"
• Nicole Trepanowski, "Prognosticators of Treatment Response to Immunotherapy in Veteran Mucosal Melanoma Patients: A Real-World Outcomes Study"