January 23, 2023 — The George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) announced the selection of Hematology and Oncology Fellow Fayez Estephan, MD, as the 2022 recipient of the Albert L. and Elizabeth T. Tucker Postdoctoral Fellowship for his research project titled, “Her-2 overexpression in prostate adenocarcinoma: its prevalence, clinical significance and utility as a therapeutic target.”
The Tucker fellowship, which comes with a one-year, $75,000 award, provides protected time to support development as a mentored scholar in clinical and translational research in cancer. Over the coming year, Estephan will explore tumor profiling of veterans with prostate cancer treated at the Washington DC VA Medical Center, with support from his mentor Maneesh Jain, MD, assistant professor of medicine at GW SMHS.
“I am very excited for this next stage of my career and am grateful for the Tucker Fellowship that will allow me to develop added skills to propose and execute prospective trials in cancer,” Estephan said following announcement of the award.
Estephan trained at the University of Damascus in Syria, followed by a research fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, and an internal medicine residency at MedStar Health. He pursued post-doctoral oncology research training at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, where he completed a retrospective study of patients with primary central nervous system lymphoma, mentored by Matthias Holdhoff, MD, PhD.
As a GW hematology/oncology fellow, Estephan joined Jain’s prostate cancer research project, which led to an accepted abstract at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s 2023 Genitourinary Cancer Symposium.
Julie E. Bauman, MD, MPH, Dr. Cyrus Katzen Family Director of the GW Cancer Center, and associate dean of cancer at GW SMHS, voiced her enthusiasm for the selection of Estephan as this year’s Tucker Fellow, commenting, “Dr. Estephan exemplifies the kind of candidate the Tucker Fellowship was designed to support. He has demonstrated his significant ability in retrospective cancer research and is ready to pivot to designing clinical trials that bring scientific discoveries to the bedside.”
The Albert L. and Elizabeth T. Tucker Postdoctoral Fellowship program supports physician scholars at the fellowship level to pursue mentored clinical and translational research leading to a prospective trial. Applicants identify a GW primary mentor with appropriate content expertise and experience mentoring young investigators. Selection is based on the recommendations of a review committee.
Applications for the next Tucker Fellowship are due March 1, 2023. For more information about the Tucker fellowship, visit the GW Cancer Center site. Qualified applicants should contact the GW Cancer Research Training and Education Coordination Association Director Alison Hall, PhD, associate dean for research workforce development at SMHS, at akhall@gwu.edu to facilitate the application process.
