The Trefler Foundation has again partnered with the Mass General Cancer Center. The Trefler Cancer Care Equity Program aims to strengthen the Cancer Center’s infrastructure around providing equitable patient care while building on the Center’s capacity for clinical research. The program will also deepen institutional partnerships and provide funding for meaningful research-focused mentorship opportunities for the next generation of cancer researchers.
As a cancer survivor myself, ensuring that all patients regardless of race or socio-economic background have access to the best cancer treatment is why we invest in the Cancer Care Equity Program at the MGH Cancer Center
Pam Trefler, Trustee
Following past investments in the Cancer Center’s efforts, including the Virtual Equity Hub for Cancer Treatment, the Trefler Foundation supported the establishment of the Early Career Investigator Awards.
This award supports Mass General Cancer Center junior faculty and fellows who are establishing independent research programs in cancer care equity. This funding helps recipients build capacity to develop, implement, and scale approaches to promote cancer equity and improve cancer outcomes, especially among underserved patient populations.
The key to sustaining progress toward improving cancer equity is to recruit and retain the most promising early career investigators who strive to build a successful career in cancer equity research. The MGH Trefler Early Career Investigator awards promotes and encourages brilliant young researchers at a critical juncture in their careers.
Dr. Beverly Moy, MD, MPH
Director of Cancer Equity Program, Mass General Cancer Center
The two outstanding recipients of this award, Dr. Adjoa Anyane-Yeboa, MD, MPH, and Dr. Daniel Lage, MD, MSc., were selected by a distinguished, multi-disciplinary committee of faculty at the Mass General Cancer Center. Their research projects are focused on addressing the needs of minority patients with colorectal and prostate cancers.
Dr. Anyane-Yeboa’s research will investigate the barriers minority patients face in successfully accessing colon cancer screening. With new screening guidelines recently announced, lowering the recommended age from 50 to 45, a new population of patients is now eligible for this service. However, they may not be aware of their eligibility or need for screening and, even with that knowledge, they may encounter barriers to getting the procedure.
With this award, Dr. Anyane-Yeboa will determine the issues for patients trying to get screened, such as where there may be missed opportunities for the procedure, how the process can be improved, and what disparities this new demographic of patients experiences. Her research will help her develop creative strategies to not only increase colorectal cancer screenings but also spread awareness about the importance of this procedure to the new demographic of patients now eligible.
Dr. Daniel Lage’s research is rooted in his observations of the differences in prostate cancer patients’ long-term outcomes between those who don’t exercise and those who do. His research will investigate the disparities in physical fitness and activity through an equity lens. With this award, Dr. Lage hopes to answer the question: what are the psychosocial barriers, specifically for men of color, to adopting physical fitness practices that lead to a better quality of life, and how can they be addressed? His research will help develop a psychosocial intervention that can be scaled widely among healthcare institutions in the community, and hopefully lead to further research funding to expand its impact.
Dr. Adjoa Anyane-Yeboa, MD, MPH is currently an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a Gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital with a co-appointment in the Clinical Translational Epidemiology Unit of the Mongan Institute at MGH.
She is passionate about health equity in gastrointestinal disorders, particularly colorectal cancer screening and IBD (irritable bowel disease) in minority communities. Her research involves partnerships with community health centers and community organizations and uses implementation science and intervention development to advance equity in colorectal cancer and IBD treatment. Her goal is to advance care, improve access, and eliminate disparities for vulnerable patient populations through health services research, advocacy, community partnerships, diversity retention, and recruitment efforts, and policy.
Dr. Daniel E. Lage, MD, MSc. is a fellow in medical oncology at Mass General Cancer Center/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and a fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focus is on improving supportive care for patients with cancer, and his clinical focus is on the care of patients with genitourinary malignancies, including prostate cancer. His career goal is to develop innovative health care delivery models to help manage symptoms and improve the quality of life for patients with cancer.
His work has been published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Annals of Internal Medicine, Cancer, and Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. His research is funded by the Conquer Cancer Foundation Career Pathway Grant in Symptom Management and the MGH Trefler Cancer Equity Early Career Investigator Award.