Lois Travis
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, IN·Medicine & Clinical Research
Cisplatin and related platinum drugs are among the most widely used cancer medicines in the world, and they cure many patients. But they can also cause lasting harm: hearing loss, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), and nerve damage in the hands and feet (neuropathy).
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
Genetics
- Topics
cisplatin
platinum chemotherapy
ototoxicity
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Track how cisplatin-related hearing loss and neuropathy change over time in testicular cancer survivors, using repeat audiometry and new physical and psychosocial measures to inform follow-up guidelines.
- Measure how cisplatin-related hearing loss, tinnitus and neuropathy, and their severity, affect survivors' physical, emotional and social functioning.
- Identify genetic variants that predispose survivors to platinum-related hearing loss and neuropathy, using genotyping and whole exome sequencing of the cohort.
- Find genetic variation that influences how much platinum remains in survivors' blood, and examine how comorbidities and modifiable risk factors relate to toxicity.
More about the research
Doctors currently have few ways to predict who will be hurt, no approved ways to prevent the damage, and few treatments once it happens.
Why it matters
Each year more than 5.8 million people are diagnosed with cancers that may be treated first with platinum drugs. Genetic markers of risk could help identify patients who might be offered alternative drugs, lower doses or better symptom management. Long-term data on testicular cancer survivors could inform evidence-based follow-up guidelines and lay groundwork for strategies to prevent or treat cisplatin-related hearing loss and nerve damage.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Suzanne M Leal
Columbia University, NY·Genetics
Develop and release Tractor-RVA, open-source software that tests rare genetic variants by ancestry in people of mixed ancestry, and apply it to African-ancestry and Latino participants.
Jenny Poynter
University of Minnesota, MN·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify tumor DNA methylation patterns, chemical marks that switch genes on or off, that predict relapse and death in pediatric germ cell tumors, using the Illumina EPIC array on 500 tumor samples.
Xiaodong Tan
Northwestern University, IL·Pharmacology
Confirm that honokiol protects hearing and activates sirtuins, enzymes that drive the cell's antioxidant defenses, in tumor-bearing mice receiving cisplatin chemotherapy.
The school
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis: 25 labs on PI Pages, $89M a year on research, 120 research doctorates a year.
More about Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis
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