October 31, 2019 —The American Thyroid Association (ATA) announces a new ATA award recognizing and celebrating the work of young women that are leading outstanding thyroid research, Women Advancing Thyroid Research (WATR) Award. Sponsored by our publisher Mary Ann Liebert (https://home.liebertpub.com/) through the Rosalind Franklin Society (https://www.rosalindfranklinsociety.org/).
The ATA pleased to announce the following as the recipients of the Women Advancing Thyroid Research Award:
- Dr. Mariella Tutter will present Highlighted Oral 4 titled, “Heat-inducible mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-mediated sodium iodide symporter (NIS) gene therapy” on Thursday, October 31.
- Dr. Cristiane Gomes-Lima will present a Highlighted Oral 5 titled, “Do Molecular Profiles of Primary versus Metastatic Radioiodine Refractory Differentiated Thyroid Cancer Differ?” on Thursday, October 31.
- On Saturday, November 2, Dr. Silvia Ippolito will present her Short Call Translational Oral 1 “Distinct cytokine signatures in anti-PD-1 or anti-CLTA-4 induced thyroiditis: insights from a new mouse model”.
- Dr. Rosa Falcone’s Short Call Clinical Oral 10 “Redifferentiation Radioiodine Therapy in Patients with Metastatic Papillary, Follicular and Poorly Differentiated Thyroid Cancer” will be presented on Saturday, November 2.
The recipients will be presented a certificate during the Women in Thyroidology Program and Meeting on Thursday, October 31. Additionally, they will receive complimentary ATA membership for one year. These four women had high-scoring abstracts on which they first authored and will present their research as orals throughout the 89th Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association in Chicago, Illinois.
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Dr. Mariella Tutter will present Highlighted Oral 4 titled, “Heat-inducible mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-mediated sodium iodide symporter (NIS) gene therapy” on Thursday, October 31.
Mariella Tutter is a PhD student at the Department of Internal Medicine IV, University Hospital of Munich, Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität (LMU)-Munich, in Munich, Germany. She completed her pharmacy studies in Munich and spent the last three years working on her doctoral thesis in the Molecular Endocrinology research laboratory of Professor Dr. Christine Spitzweg in Munich. One of the research areas of the Spitzweg group is the investigation of the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) as theranostic gene for imaging and therapy of non-thyroidal tumors after systemic gene transfer using virus-, polymer- or mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based delivery vectors. Mariella is focusing on the combination of MSC-mediated NIS gene therapy with regional hyperthermia using a hyperthermia-inducible HSP70B promoter for enhanced temporal and spatial control of transgene expression and to take advantage of synergistic effects. Moreover, she is investigating the capacity of hyperthermia to enhance the selective recruitment of MSCs to the tumor stroma. Mariella has been an active member of the ATA since 2017.
Dr. Cristiane Gomes-Lima will present a Highlighted Oral 5 titled, “Do Molecular Profiles of Primary versus Metastatic Radioiodine Refractory Differentiated Thyroid Cancer Differ?” on Thursday, October 31.
Dr. Cristiane Gomes-Lima graduated in Medicine from the University of Brasilia, Brazil. She completed her Internal Medicine residency, followed by Endocrinology fellowship and a master’s degree in Health Sciences. After working in clinical practice, she pursued a post-graduate research fellowship in thyroid cancer. She is currently a research fellow at Medstar Health Research Institute, in Washington, DC, and a guest researcher at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
On Saturday, November 2, Dr. Silvia Ippolito will present her Short Call Translational Oral 1 “Distinct cytokine signatures in anti-PD-1 or anti-CLTA-4 induced thyroiditis: insights from a new mouse model”.
Dr. Silvia Ippolito is a last-year Resident in Endocrinology at Insubria University in Varese, Italy, headed by Professor Luigi Bartalena. In 2019 she attended a fellowship research program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in the Hyphophysitis and Thyroiditis Lab headed by Professor Patrizio Caturegli.
Her main interest and core research are autoimmunity of endocrine disorders and effects of immune checkpoint inhibitors in thyroid and pituitary, both in preclinical models and clinical research. During her fellowship, she developed the first mouse model of thyroiditis induced by immune checkpoint inhibitors, detailing histopathological, sonographic, hormonal, and immunological features and offering biomarkers potentially useful in the clinical setting.
As a resident, she works with all types of endocrinology issues but has a special interest for thyroid-specific diseases (Graves’ and Hashimoto diseases, thyreopathy in pregnancy, thyroid ultrasound).
Dr. Rosa Falcone’s Short Call Clinical Oral 10 “Redifferentiation Radioiodine Therapy in Patients with Metastatic Papillary, Follicular and Poorly Differentiated Thyroid Cancer” will be presented on Saturday, November 2.
Dr. Rosa Falcone received her medical training at Sapienza University of Rome, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2012. She received her board certification in medical oncology (summa cum laude) in 2018.
Dr. Falcone is currently completing the last year of her PhD in Innovative Biomedical Technologies in Clinical Medicine at Sapienza University of Rome, where she has been studying advanced thyroid cancer biology and following patients affected by these tumors. She is actively involved in translational and clinical research programs, where she has a strong interest in the early phases of clinical experimentation. During the two years of her PhD studies she has improved her expertise in molecular data analysis and bioinformatics and collaborated with engineers and physicists in order to further develop the network medicine approach to the study of complex diseases like cancer and find new algorithms to apply in oncology.
She completed a Clinical and Research Fellowship in Switzerland at the Immuno-oncology Phase I Clinical Trial Unit. She has participated as a subinvestigator in phase 1, 2, and 3 international clinical trials and most recently completed a fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she studied redifferentiation therapy in thyroid cancer.
Dr. Falcone has published 35 works, including six papers as a first author. She is a two-time recipient of the Sapienza research grant for young researchers. In 2018 she completed a training course in medical education. Dr. Falcone has taught seminars at Sapienza University of Rome and has supervised medical students.
The ATA is thrilled to have this new opportunity to recognize our early career colleagues. You can view the full abstracts published in the Thyroid journal here – https://www.liebertpub.com/toc/thy/29/s1
Rosalind Franklin Society
The Rosalind Franklin Society recognizes and celebrates the contributions of outstanding women in the life sciences and affiliated disciplines, promotes broadened opportunities for women in the sciences, and through its many activities motivates new generations of women to this calling. The Society honors the achievements of Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958), a British x-ray crystallographer whose extraordinary work, though largely overlooked and under-appreciated at the time, was crucial to the discovery of DNA’s structure by James Watson and Francis Crick. The powerful symbolism of her remarkable story drives the Society’s agenda.
The Society’s efforts aim at enabling more women to achieve tenure-track appointments in academia as well as leadership positions in industry, academia, and government. The Society regularly communicates its activities and accomplishments to the scientific community and to talented young women as motivation to pursue science as a profession. Toward these ends, the Society organizes special events throughout the year, creates annual awards for women in life sciences, and actively educates the public, policymakers, and the media about significant contributions of women to scientific research.
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
Founded by Mary Ann Liebert in 1980, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. is a leading independent publisher of scientific, technical, and medical content, known worldwide for its prescience and establishment of authoritative peer-reviewed journals, books, and trade publications in cutting-edge fields such as biotechnology, biomedical research, medicine and surgery, public health research and policy, technology and engineering, law, environmental research and policy, and other specialized disciplines. The company publishes over 90 peer-reviewed journals, leading trade magazines, and specialized newsletters, in addition to society membership management and conferences.
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The American Thyroid Association® (ATA) is dedicated to transforming thyroid care through clinical excellence, education, scientific discovery and advocacy in a collaborative community. ATA® is an international professional medical society with over 1,700 members from 70 countries around the world. Celebrating its 96th anniversary, the ATA® delivers its mission — transforming thyroid care through clinical excellence, education, scientific discovery and advocacy in a collaborative community — through several key endeavors:
- The publication of the highly regarded professional journals Thyroid®, Clinical Thyroidology®, and VideoEndocrinology
- Annual scientific meetings
- Biennial clinical and research symposia
- Research grant programs for young investigators
- Support of online professional, public, and patient educational programs
- Development of guidelines for clinical management of thyroid disease and thyroid cancer
The ATA® promotes thyroid awareness and information through its online Clinical Thyroidology® for the Public (distributed free of charge to over 12,000 patients and public subscribers) and extensive, authoritative explanations of thyroid disease and thyroid cancer in both English and Spanish. The ATA® website www.thyroid.org serves as a bonafide clinical resource for patients and the public who look for reliable information on the Internet.
AMERICAN THYROID ASSOCIATION® , ATA® , THYROID® , CLINICAL THYROIDOLOGY® , and the distinctive circular logo are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as trademarks of the American Thyroid Association® , Inc.