Beauchemin Awarded $5.5M to Boost Cancer Clinical Trial Access, Improve Survivor Care

Assistant professor Melissa Beauchemin, PhD '19, has secured $5.5 million in cancer research funding in recent months. Her funded research projects aim to address critical gaps in cancer care, from improving access to clinical trials to reconnecting survivors with follow-up care. 

The first award, “A Multilevel Intervention to Improve Enrollment in Clinical Trials Among Adolescents and Young Adults and Older Adults with Blood Cancer,” is a five-year, $2.5 million study announced by Blood Cancer United this October. Beauchemin along with her colleagues Justine Kahn, MD, Columbia University Herbert Irving Cancer Center and Barbara Pro, MD, Columbia University Irving Medical Center will implement, evaluate, and scale an intervention to improve clinical trial enrollment among adolescents and young adults and older adults with blood cancers, groups that are often underrepresented in research. The research team will combine AI-driven trial matching, streamlined provider support, and patient-centered navigation to reduce challenges to accessing and participating in clinical trials. 

Beauchemin also received a $3 million National Institutes of Health award in September to lead with Alexander Psihogios, PhD, Northwestern University, a study focused on adolescent and young adult survivors of childhood cancer who have become disconnected from follow-up care. Leveraging national registries of childhood cancer survivors, the “Testing Scalable Strategies to Identify, Reach, and Re-Engage Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors of Childhood Cancer in Risk-Based Care,” project will evaluate digital outreach and telehealth-based navigation strategies designed to re-engage survivors in annual care and improve long-term health outcomes.