Congratulations to pharmacology graduate student Nicholas Dybdal-Hargreaves on receiving a National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) F30 Fellowship Grant.

The NIH’s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research granted a Research Fellowship Award to Nicholas for his project titled: ‘Notch signaling and anticancer drug sensitivity in oral squamous cell carcinoma’ which will help him understand why certain cancer drugs work or don’t work at a molecular level.

“We know more and more in cancer that it’s typically more effective to treat a patient with a cocktail of drugs so you can avoid acquired or innate resistances and try to get closer to a cure,” Dybdal-Hargreaves said. “Often the optimal combinations to use for each patient are not known, ideally we’d be able to look at a patient’s tumor and be able, based on the molecular profile, to identify the most effective combination to use.”

Nicholas conducts his research in the lab of Pharmacology Professor and the Greehey Distinguished Chair in Targeted Molecular Therapeutics Susan Mooberry, Ph.D..

To read more about his research, check out “Nick Dybdal-Hargreaves Aims to Help Patients with Oral Cancers.”