# The Boston University-UCLA Lung Cancer Biomarker Development Lab

> **NIH NIH U01** · BOSTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CAMPUS · 2021 · $216,625

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
With the increasing adoption of computed tomography (CT) as a screening tool for lung cancer, methods
for identifying the small number of patients with malignant nodules from among the large number of patients
with benign CT-detected nodules is a growing and urgent clinical need. We have targeted the problem of
developing biomarkers for detecting malignant solid or part-solid nodules that are 6 – 25 mm in diameter that
are identified by screening at risk individuals or found incidentally in screen-eligible individuals. The ability to
sensitively detect lung cancer in this clinical setting could reduce many of the potentially harmful
consequences that currently arise from uncertainties about which of these indeterminate lung nodules require
the most aggressive workup. The core of our approach is the integration of molecular biomarkers measured
in non-invasively collected nasal brushes and plasma specimens together with complementary imaging and
clinical markers. On the basis of our preliminary data, we will use total RNA sequencing of both large and
small RNA to deeply characterize the cancer-associated airway-wide field of injury in nasal epithelium;
exosome-derived plasma miRNA to capture information about tumor-associated products found in the
circulation; and qualitative and quantitative imaging characteristics to capture information about the biology of
the nodule and the local environment that would otherwise only be available through direct sampling.
Further, we will be profiling these features in several unique cohorts of smokers with indeterminate nodules
detected either incidentally or by screening that represent the clinical population in which most lung cancers
are diagnosed. Our use of biorepositories that have been collected from the clinical settings in which the
biomarker would ultimately be applied, utilizing a prospective-specimen-collection, retrospective-blinded-
evaluation (PRoBE) design minimizes potential bias and improves applicability to the intended use
population. A key aspect of our biomarker development plan is a two-staged feature selection process that
will allow us to efficiently use patient cohorts to detect robustly cancer-associated molecular and imaging
features that will then be used to construct integrated cancer predictive models. The performance and
clinical utility of the resulting models will undergo preliminary validation studies at the end of the proposed
studies. This will allow us to make a GO / NO-GO decision about whether they should be subsequently
tested in larger validation trials based on a rigorous evaluation of their validity and also whether they
represent progress toward our goal of shrinking the intermediate risk category, thereby improving the
diagnostic workup of the large number of patients for whom there is currently considerable clinical
uncertainty.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10463887
- **Project number:** 3U01CA214182-05S1
- **Recipient organization:** BOSTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CAMPUS
- **Principal Investigator:** DENISE R. ABERLE
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $216,625
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2016-09-20 → 2022-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10463887

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10463887, The Boston University-UCLA Lung Cancer Biomarker Development Lab (3U01CA214182-05S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10463887. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*