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Research Grants Program
The EHE Foundation seeks to support and fund the most promising basic, translational and clinical research in order to expand our understanding of EHE and accelerate the development of treatments. To view Foundation funded research projects, please go to Research Projects & Initiatives.
For more information about The EHE Foundation Research Grants Program and how to apply please see the Research Grant Program Guidelines and the Research Grant Application.
For general inquiries please contact [email protected].
Grants Awarded
2022
Award Amount: $200,000 over a three-year project (plus an additional matching a $250,000 private, designated donation toward this research). Award Year: 2022
Research Goal: To reveal pathways that can be targeted with existing FDA-approved drugs to either eliminate EHE or prevent its growth.
Research Objectives:
- Identify druggable pathways that are required for TAZ-CAMTA1 activity and EHE growth/viability.
- Establish and optimize an EHE transplant model system in mice for testing therapeutic compounds.
- Develop multiplexed in vivo assays in mice and use them to test multiple therapeutic targets.
Award Amount: $65,000 Award Year: 2022
Research Goal: To identify an FDA-approved drug that can sequester TAZ-CAMTA1 (TC), TEAD, or both in the cytoplasm and inhibit tumorigenesis.
Research Objectives:
- Identify drugs that relocate TC and/or TEAD to the cytoplasm using a subcellular localization screen.
- Perform preclinical characterization of shortlisted drugs.
Award Amount: $26,600 Award Year: 2022
Research Goal: To understand further how TAZ-CAMTA1 interferes with the DNA damage response and whether this interference represents a therapeutic vulnerability that can be exploited.
Research Objective: Test the druggability of the DNA damage response interference by TAZ-CAMTA1.
Read more information in our blog post, The EHE Foundation Funds Fellowship Travel Grants.
2021
Award Amount: $150,000 over a three-year project (US Foundation award of $120,000 in partnership with EHE Rare Cancer Foundation Australia award of $30,000); Award Year: 2021
Research Objectives: Aim 1: Test Calmodulin represses TAZ-CAMTA1 activity and tumorigenic function. Aim 2: Determine the mechanism of Calmodulin regulation of TAZ-CAMTA1. Aim 3: Determine if Calcium-Calmodulin signaling represses TAZ-CAMTA1 in mouse EHE cells.
Award Amount: $60,000 (US Foundation award of $52,500 in partnership with EHE Rare Cancer Foundation Australia award of $7,500); Award Year: 2021
Research Objectives: Aim 1: Investigate the transcriptional and epigenetic profile of EHE tumors. Aim 2: Establishing in vitro models of EHE to evaluate early steps of cellular transformation. Aim 3: Investigate the epigenetic landscape of cells expressing the fusion in various cellular contexts by comprehensive epigenome mapping. Aim 4: Developing in vivo models of fusion positive EHE.
Award Amount: $40,000 (US Foundation partnership with EHE Group funding); Award Year: 2021
Research Objectives: To assess 1) the profiles of circulating cytokines, hormones (and miRNAs), and ii) the ERα, Erβ and GPER expression and the YAP/TAZ activation in tumor tissues, as a function of the clinical course of the disease. To this end the analysis will be conducted on the whole study patient population compared to healthy controls, and by stratifying EHE patients who will enter the study in 3 subgroups according to disease behavior (non-growing disease, slow- growing disease, highly aggressive disease with evidence of pleural effusion and systemic symptoms), and 2) the identification and validation of novel biomarkers to inform patient management (prognosticators and predictors of response to medical agents) as well as potential therapeutic targets.
Award Amount: $10,000; Award Year: 2020
Project Overview: This project is initiated with the passion of EHE patient advocates, Lael Bellamy & Lynne Heckman Rabinowitz, to develop Foster’s mouse, a YAP-TFE3 genetically engineered mouse model (GEMM). Through generous gifts and contributions, Dr. Rubin will initiate the development of a YAP-TFE3 GEMM for EHE and also to provide insights into other cancer research. It is estimated that 90% of EHE tumors contain a WWTR1-CAMTA1 gene fusion, and the other 10% contain a YAP1-TFE3 gene fusion. This research will aim to further research in this very rare gene fusion.
Award Amount: $60,000; Award Year: 2020
Research Objectives: The ability to use serial blood-based monitoring to identify clinically relevant disease recurrence and/or progression should provide clinicians with a means by which to intervene when a true impact on survival is achievable. This research aims to develop and validate a highly specific cfDNA based assay to detect WWTR1-CAMTA1 and YAP1-TFE3 fusions in patients with a tissue biopsy confirmed diagnosis of EHE.
Award Amount: $20,000 (US Foundation partnership with EHE Group funding); Award Year: 2019
Research Objectives: This research aims to test the hypothesis that the TAZ-CAMTA1 fusion protein is subject to regulation by Hippo-pathway independent mechanisms that could be exploited to inhibit TAZ-CAMTA1 function and treat EHE. The research will test the hypothesis using the following aims: 1) identify regulators of the TAZ-CAMTA1 fusion protein and assess their therapeutic potential, and 2) establish model systems to assay TAZ-CAMTA1 function in in vitro and in vivo and use to test therapeutic potential of candidate TAZ-CAMTA1 regulators.
Award Amount: $120,000; Award Year: 2019
Research Objectives: A comprehensive study of EHE genetics and the tumor microenvironment. The study aims to map intra-tumoral molecular differences between various subtypes of EHE, as well as variations in immune cells infiltrating and surrounding EHE tumors. The objective of this research is to identify potential targets for various types of treatments including immunotherapy. Publications resulting from this grant include:
- Prognostic stratification of clinical and molecular epithelioid hemangioendothelioma subsets. Rosenbaum E, Jadeja B, Xu B, Zhang L, Agaram NP, Travis W, Singer S, Tap WD, Antonescu CR. Modern Pathology. 2020 Apr;33(4):591-602.
- Variant WWTR1gene fusions in epithelioid hemangioendothelioma-A genetic subset associated with cardiac involvement. Suurmeijer AJH, Dickson BC, Swanson D, Sung YS, Zhang L, Antonescu CR. Genes Chromosomes Cancer. 2020 Jul;59(7):389-395.
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