Dr. Laura Bukavina Wins ASCO Genitourinary Conquer Cancer Merit Award for Microbiome Research in Bladder Cancer

Winning Abstract to be presented by University Hospitals Urology Institute urologic oncologist in February

Laura Bukavina, MD, MPH, a Urologic Oncology Fellow at Fox Chase Cancer Center, has been awarded the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Genitourinary Conquer Cancer Merit Award. She will present the winning abstract, which characterizes the gut microbiome of bladder cancer patients, at the 2022 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, which is being held February 17-19.

The broader research project is a collaboration between researchers at Fox Chase and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine/University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, where Bukavina completed her urology residency in 2021.

“Ninety percent of your immune system is within your gut,” said Bukavina. “And we see that some patients have an incredible response to chemotherapy, while others do not despite their tumor biology being very similar. This may in part be explained by the gut immune system and gut microbiome,” Bukavina said.

“It is incredible to think that as humans, only about one percent of our genomic composition is human, while the rest is derived from the microbiome. We suspected that the microbiome was different in patients with and without cancer, and this study proved that,” Bukavina added.

The research team now hypothesizes that the microbiome in the gut primes the immune system to respond differently to both the cancer cells and chemotherapy, and wants to explore whether certain bioactive small molecules produced by the microbiome can affect chemotherapy response. They are primed to interrogate this hypothesis now based on Bukavina’s findings.

The end goal of the project is to first identify and then influence specific microbes or metabolites—byproducts of the metabolic process—that improve the response of bladder cancer patients to chemotherapy and immunotherapy. The research Bukavina will present at the ASCO GU symposium is the first step toward this goal.

Bukavina and her mentor, Phillip Abbosh, MD, PhD, an assistant professor in the Molecular Therapeutics research program at Fox Chase, compared the microbiomes of patients with bladder cancer and a cancer-free control group by collecting and analyzing stool samples from both groups. Bukavina said the study was a team effort that included Adam Calaway, MD, MPH, of University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center, who assisted with patient recruitment.

“Dr. Bukavina showed great initiative in developing and executing this study, which is addressing very important questions. Her work is certainly deserving of this prestigious honor,” Abbosh said. If they found no difference between the two groups, then there would be no clear route for intervention. However, they found significantly larger quantities of two bacteria, Campylobacter and Fusobacterium, in the samples from the bladder cancer patients versus samples from non-cancer and Fusobacterium, in the samples from the bladder cancer patients versus samples from non-cancer subjects.

“Now that we’ve identified the differences, the next step is to look at the microbiome of bladder cancer patients who responded to chemotherapy versus patients who did not respond to chemotherapy,” she said.

“We are thrilled Dr. Bukavina is getting the recognition she deserves through this ASCO Genitourinary Conquer Cancer Merit Award. She is a fierce, up-and-coming leader in urologic oncology, dedicating herself to research that covers numerous aspects of complex urologic care in cancer patients. Dr. Bukavina deserves this accolade and so much more as a rising female leader in this field. We are excited she will be returning to University Hospitals Urology Institute as faculty next year,” said Lee Ponsky, MD, FACS, chair of the institute, which is in Cleveland.

The study, “Characterization and Functional Analysis of Microbiome in Bladder Cancer,” was funded by the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center Microbiome Grant P30CA043703 issued by the National Cancer Institute within the National Institutes of Health.