University of Florida College of Nursing faculty member Debra Lyon, PhD, RN, FAAN received an award for a National Institute of Nursing Research R21 grant, “Metabolomic signature of PN symptoms in breast cancer over the first year of treatment and survivorship” in March. The R21 grant mechanism is intended to encourage exploratory/developmental research by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of project development. The two year, $434,000 grant is poised to make a novel and significant impact by illuminating potential metabolomics measures that are associated with psychoneurologic symptoms in women with early-stage breast cancer.
The public health impact of breast cancer, its treatments and resultant symptom burden is an ongoing problem given the increasing incidence and prevalence of breast cancer and its significant health-related economic and social consequences. One of the most distressing issues for breast cancer patients and survivors is the burden of symptoms, specifically cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, pain and depressive/anxiety symptoms, termed psychoneurologic symptoms, or PN symptoms.
Through this grant, Lyon’s team will continue to develop the requisite scientific background for refining phenotypes, novel biological factors (metabolomics), and integrated signatures that may form a basis for future biomarker risk assays, as well as targeted interventions to prevent and/or mitigate the severity of PN symptoms in women with breast cancer.
The project period runs March 20, 2020-Feb. 29, 2022