Lung Cancer

At the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center, our team of 15 scientists focused on lung cancer is taking on this disease from every angle. Our researchers are working to improve prevention efforts, detect lung cancer earlier and develop personalized therapy to improve the standard of care for lung cancer treatments.

While we are making meaningful progress, one fact remains: more people in the United States die from lung cancer than any other type of cancer.

Fortunately, we have you.

Our donors are critical partners, making investments that help the lung cancer research program amass talent and obtain equipment that leads to breakthroughs. In some cases, your generosity grants us the flexibility to pursue bold ideas that would otherwise go unexplored.

Together, we’re making progress that will save more lives in Indiana and around the world. Here is a glimpse of what you make possible at IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center.

A transformative gift in 2024 established the Tom and Julie Wood Center for Lung Cancer Research at the IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center to advance discoveries related to lung cancer prevention, detection and treatment. The gift from Julie Wood honors her late husband, Tom Wood, the well-known Indianapolis auto executive who died in 2010.

The newly established center will expand efforts in basic science research to understand the complexities of lung cancer at a cellular level, develop innovative lung cancer drugs, support early-phase clinical trials for IU-developed treatments, and expand the lung cancer precision genomics program. The center will accelerate research at IU, making your gift to lung cancer research go further.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths, killing more people than colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer–the second, third, and fourth-leading cancer killers–combined. Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death.

However, early detection through low-dose CT scans could decrease lung cancer’s mortality rate by 20%. That’s why early detection and screening is vital.

Thanks to a generous gift from the Tom and Julie Wood Family Foundation, a mobile lung cancer screening program will soon take life-saving screenings to eligible high-risk Hoosiers statewide. The mobile program, the only one of its kind in Indiana, will screen its first patient in 2025 and is part of the End Lung Cancer Now initiative.

Founded by Nasser Hanna, MD, End Lung Cancer Now’s vision is to end the suffering and death caused by lung cancer in Indiana. Efforts focus on reducing tobacco consumption, increasing life-saving screening CTs, improving participation in clinical research, and reducing the stigma around the disease through advocacy.

To ensure our screening efforts are guided by research, Dr. Hanna and the End Lung Cancer Now team are conducting a pilot study to develop a community lung cancer screening tool. The project aims to develop community outreach methods to reach vulnerable populations at high risk of developing lung cancer to increase lung cancer screening rates in Indiana. The online tool will help determine a person’s lung cancer screening eligibility and additional resources. The tool will be used at community events where patient advocates will promote the tool and reach individuals who may not otherwise interact with the healthcare system.

Through this pilot project, researchers will assess baseline awareness of lung cancer screening, test the effectiveness of the tool in improving lung cancer screening education outcomes, and identify areas for improvement in future project scaling.

And scaling these efforts quickly is the goal. Shadia Jalal, MD, and  Catherine Sears, MD, are leading efforts to expand lung cancer screenings and lung cancer clinical trial access and accrual specifically for Hoosier veterans. Together, they received a three-year, $1 million grant from the National Center for Lung Cancer Screening and Lung Precision Oncology Program.

Though they are at higher risk of developing lung cancer, veterans get fewer screenings than the general eligible population. This funding aims to expand access and increase accrual of more Indiana veterans into clinical trials for lung cancer.

In an effort to offer more people life-saving lung cancer screening, Julian A. Marin-Acevedo, MD, is working on a study to evaluate expanding criteria for lung cancer screening to other high-risk populations who don’t currently meet screening criteria.

About 35,000 patients are diagnosed with stage I lung cancer annually in the United States. The current standard of care for these patients with early-stage disease is surgery and then observation – with a five-year overall survival of 73-86%. IU researchers want to know if treatment after surgery with a specific immunotherapy called pembrolizumab will improve survival rates for these patients. To answer this question, Greg Durm, MD, is leading a randomized clinical study that opened first at IU and is now offered at centers across the country.

IU cancer researchers are constantly in the process of developing and opening new lung cancer research studies.

Bharathi Muthusamy, MD, will soon open a study evaluating stigma in patients with lung cancer and other smoking-related cancers such as kidney, bladder and pancreatic cancers. Previous studies indicated that patients with lung cancer feel more stigma and guilt than patients with non-smoking related cancers. In the decade since those findings, education and advocacy efforts have worked to address that stigma. This study will help researchers understand where things stand. Dr. Muthusamy is also developing a study to evaluate a personalized prescription for lung cancer screening and prevention.

In the quest to revolutionize lung cancer treatment, some of our patients also provide the most precious gift to research—themselves.

One reason lung cancer is such a challenging disease is that obtaining a simple tumor biopsy can be difficult and risky. That’s especially true in patients with aggressive small-cell disease. Cancer cells multiply so quickly in these tumors that any sample researchers obtain is swamped with dead cells.

There’s a solution to help researchers, but it is grim: obtaining a biopsy shortly after a patient passes away.

Some patients who want to further research have consented to donate such a sample within 12 hours of their death. The tiny bit of tissue is a significant contribution.

Led by Dr. Jalal, this tissue biorepository is invaluable for researchers. Samples go into cell and animal models, teaching us about lung cancer’s deadly mechanics. They will let us explore the microscopic and harsh environment around a tumor. And they will serve as a proving ground for drugs aimed at new targets.

When patients enrolled in this trial pass away, their tumor and blood samples are collected. Thanks to these selfless patients, researchers have created new cell lines that are more reflective of the true nature of small-cell disease.