The V Foundation, a cancer research charity founded in 1993 by ESPN and the late Jim Valvano, legendary North Carolina State University basketball coach and ESPN commentator, awarded $100,000 to Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center researcher Lluis Morey, Ph.D. That was matched by another $100,000 from the Miami Dolphins Foundation.

Dr. Morey, who leads the Morey Lab on Chromatin and Dynamics in Stem Cells and Cancer at Sylvester, received the “2020 Early Career Investigator Award” for his project titled LSD1/coREST Inhibition Overcomes Resistance to Endocrine Therapies in Breast Cancer. The focus of this research is to understand the epigenetic mechanisms of resistance to therapy and to overcome resistance by using a novel therapeutic approach. 

Epigenetic mechanisms are changes in gene function that do not depend on changes in gene sequences but rather on changes in how genes are turned on or off or moderated in their activity. For instance, how open or available DNA strands are to interaction with regulating molecules can affect gene activity and drive the cancer mutations. 

“With the support of the V Foundation and the Miami Dolphins Foundation, my laboratory will be able to contribute to a cure for aggressive luminal breast cancers” said Dr. Morey, an assistant professor in the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics at the Miller School of Medicine.

The Morey Lab is focused on dissecting the molecular and biological functions of epigenetics in cancer and stem cells. Dr. Morey has made a number of important contributions in identifying and characterizing essential regulators involved in stem cell identity, differentiation and cancer progression