CGF E Alexander Stent Fund grant to fund additional Kenneth Warren Fellowship

The IHPBA Foundation is extremely grateful to the CGF E Alexander Stent Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee, for again providing a generous grant which has been designated to fund a second Kenneth Warren Fellowship in 2019/2020.   Dr Kenneth W Warren’s sons, Tom and George Warren, set up the Foundation with the goal of supporting the salary of two Warren Fellows each year, and we are therefore delighted that this grant has enabled the IHPBA Foundation to award a second Kenneth Warren Fellowship this year.

Dr Marta Sandini was awarded the 2019/2020 Kenneth Warren Fellowship in June 2019 and we are now very pleased to announce that the second IHPBA Kenneth Warren Fellowship for 2019/2020 has been awarded to Dr Lingdi Yin from Nanjing, China.

The objective of Dr. Yin's research is to identify genetic markers associated with lymph node metastasis and early recurrence of small pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNETs) and to incorporate genetic markers with clinicopathological characteristics and develop a prediction model of tumor recurrence after surgical resection of PanNETs.

A large proportion of PanNETs are small and non-functional. Although society guidelines propose non-operative management for small asymptomatic sporadic non-functional PanNETs. Dr Yin's institutional data showed that 15% of resected small PanNETs had N1 disease with a significant risk of recurrence. Two current challenges in small PanNETs surgery need to be addressed: a) identify patients who will benefit most from surgery and b) perform a proper lymphadenectomy when resecting small PanNETs.

Recently, NGS on endoscopic ultrasound guided biopsy of pancreatic tumors was reported to correlate well with those sequencing data from matched resected pancreatic tumors. Dr Yin's group hypothesize that molecular profiling of endoscopic ultrasound guided biopsy of small PanNETs will allow us to identify important genetic features that will help guide personalized treatment of PanNETs. With genetic information and clinical data from two high-volume centers (Johns Hopkins Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University), a novel predicting system will be established to direct the decision-making of treatment for small PanNETs.

This study will be led by the Johns Hopkins Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University.

Dr. Yin will be working under the mentorship of Prof. Jin He, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery, Division of Pancreatic and Hepatobiliary Surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Prof. Yi Miao, Director, Pancreas Institute, Nanjing Medical University.

IHPBA would like to congratulate Dr Yin on this achievement and wish him all the best with his research.

Read more on the Kenneth Warren Fellowship here 

Published on

Corporate Partners

Angiodynamics logo
Baxter logo

If you are interested in becoming a Corporate Partner of the IHBPA please contact industry@ihpba.org

Find out more