The 2024 recipient of the American Association for Cancer Research Team Science Award is Team Womb, an interdisciplinary team of academics and healthcare professionals from across the medical, oncology, pathology, health economics, and behavioral science fields.

Team Womb is recognized for demonstrating that 3 percent of endometrial cancers are caused by Lynch syndrome. The team has brilliantly demonstrated that immunohistochemistry-based approaches to detecting DNA mismatch repair protein deficiencies represent a clinical and cost-effective method for detecting Lynch syndrome, work that has led to fundamental changes to endometrial cancer prevention strategies and clinical practice guidelines.

Team leader Emma Crosbie, BSc, MBChB, PhD, University of Manchester, United Kingdom, and other members of Team Womb will present during the education session Team Science: How to Form and Manage a Multidisciplinary Cancer Research Team, Saturday, April 6, at 8 a.m. PT in Room 5 on the upper level of the convention center. The team also will be honored during the AACR Annual Meeting 2024 Opening Ceremony on Sunday, April 7, at 8 a.m. PT.

For Crosbie, the team aspect makes the research even more rewarding.

“It is an enormous pleasure to work with experts in their respective fields toward a common vision that ultimately improves outcomes for patients,” she said. “It has been fantastic to use the ambition and drive of the collective to inspire the next generation of junior faculty, and through working directly with patients and patient support groups, ensure that patients remain at the very heart of our endeavors.”

She felt a swell of pride and gratitude — and more than a little surprise — when she learned that Team Womb had earned the AACR Team Science honor.

Crosbie thanked the AACR for the recognition and said, “This prize is a fantastic and prestigious accolade that brings international recognition to our work and rewards all the effort, persistence, and tenacity that we had to show to complete it.”

The AACR Team Science Award, supported by Loxo@Lilly, recognizes an outstanding interdisciplinary research team for its innovative and meritorious science that has advanced or likely will advance our fundamental knowledge of cancer, or a team that has applied existing knowledge to advance the detection, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of cancer.

Team Womb members include:

• Emma Crosbie, BSc, MBChB, PhD, Team Leader
• James Bolton, MA, BMBCh
• D. Gareth Evans, MBBS, MD
• Louise Gorman, MSc, PhD
• Raymond McMahon, MBBCh, BAO, BSc, MD
• Rhona McVey, BSc, MBChB
• Nadira Narine, MSc
• Katherine Payne, BPharm, MSc, PhD
• Durgesh N. Rana, MBBS, MD
• Neil Ryan, MBChB, PhD