Jean Grem, M.D., the head gastrointestinal cancer researcher/clinician
at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., will be joining the
Eppley Cancer Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center this
spring to direct the Gastrointestinal Oncology Program and the Oncology
Drug Development Program. She also will serve as professor in the oncology/hematology
section of the Department of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Grem is an outstanding recruit, said Harold M. Maurer, M.D., UNMC
chancellor. We could not have done it without the Tobacco Settlement Funds.
She will be leading a critical area in our cancer treatment efforts.
Funded through Legislative Bill 692, the Nebraska Tobacco Settlement
Biomedical Research Development Fund provided a total of $10 million in
fiscal year 2001-02 to the states four biomedical research institutions
UNMC, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Creighton University and Boys
Town National Research Hospital.
The four institutions have elected to use the funds in three strategic
areas to recruit and retain outstanding biomedical researchers, to support
key research programs by obtaining and upgrading major research equipment,
and to support research projects to improve racial and ethnic minority
health in Nebraska.
Dr. Grem is a great hire for the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center, said Ken
Cowan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center. She is
a nationally recognized expert on gastrointestinal cancer and the area
of drug development and evaluation and has had a very successful clinical
trials program at NCI.
The Tobacco Settlement money was crucial for her recruitment, as it
will provide the funds for her to set up a core lab at UNMC for Pharmacokinetic/
Pharmacodynamic research. She will be able to assist anyone at UNMC in
running Phase I drug development clinical studies involving cancer and
non-cancer research.
Dr. Grem is currently collaborating with a Cooperative Oncology Group
to develop a multi-institutional clinical trial to determine the effectiveness
of new drug combinations in treating patients with cancers arising in the
colon and rectum. This trial will be opened at UNMC.
Her research involves looking for specific markers in tumors to determine
if it might be possible to predict whether a patient is likely to respond
to a particular drug. This research may one day allow oncologists to select
the most appropriate drugs to use based on the specific molecular features
of the tumor. She also is trying to determine if the drugs get into patients
at appropriate levels and into the appropriate targets in the tumor cells.
She wants to determine if the proteins in these cancer cells are being
inhibited. Its a critical piece in solving the mystery of cancer, Dr.
Cowan said.
Dr. Grem will collaborate with the UNMC College of Pharmacy, Dr. Cowan
said, and will be using state of the art separation techniques such as
high performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography with various
detection methods for measuring drugs in biological samples including ultraviolet,
fluorescence and mass spectral detection.
A native of Oak Park, Ill., Dr. Grem earned her undergraduate degree
with honors from Purdue University and her medical degree with honors from
Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. She did her internship and residency
training at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics and a clinical
and research fellowship in medical oncology at the University of Wisconsin
Clinical Cancer Center.
Following her fellowship, Dr. Grem joined the National Cancer Institute
in 1986 and has worked at the NCI ever since. During this time, she was
a colleague of Dr. Cowan, who worked at the NCI for 21 years before coming
to UNMC in 1999.
She was initially a senior investigator in the NCI Investigational Drug
Branch before being recruited to the former Medicine Branch in 1989. Since
last year, she has held the position of head of the Gastrointestinal Malignancies
Section, where her research focuses on the biochemical and molecular pharmacology
of antimetabolites and investigational anti-cancer agents in an effort
to develop therapeutic strategies for cancers in the gastrointestinal tract.
Gastrointestinal cancers include colon, rectal, stomach, pancreas, liver,
esophageal and bile duct cancer.
A prodigious researcher, Dr. Grem has had more than 150 articles published
in scientific journals. She presently serves as associate editor of Clinical
Cancer Research and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and is
a member of the editorial board of Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology.
While doing her fellowship at Wisconsin, Dr. Grem was involved in one of
the initial Phase I clinical trials of the cancer drug paclitaxel (Taxol®).
At the NCI, her research group includes five research nurses, two data
managers, two oncology fellows, and five other medical oncologists. She
currently has eight open clinical protocols with about 50 active patients.
I was very impressed by the enthusiasm and collegiality of the faculty
and staff during my initial visit to UNMC, Dr. Grem said. I am excited
about the opportunity to help build a multi-disciplinary, translational
clinical research program. I hope to develop strong collaborations with
faculty in gastroenterology, surgical oncology, radiation oncology and
the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center.
She expects to begin working at UNMC in the late spring of 2003.