Lorenzo Dagna, MD
Lorenzo Dagna, MD
In April 2010, only one month after receiving a 501(c)(3) designation, the organization announced it would be awarding a $50,000 ECD research grant and put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) to the international medical research community. In November 2010, the first grant recipient was chosen.
The ECD Global Alliance 2010 grant was awarded to Lorenzo Dagna, MD at San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milano, Italy for the study described as, “Hypoxia and inflammation in Erdheim-Chester disease microenvironment: insights on the pathogenesis and implications for therapy proposal”. The aim of this study was to better define the microenvironment inside ECD lesions and to evaluate the possibility of using specific drugs, already available for human usage, to find new therapeutic options for the disease. The study ran from January 2011 until June 2012. The results of this study can be found in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol. 310, 2012, in an article entitled, “Tumor Necrosis Factor as a Master Regulator of Inflammation in Erdheim-Chester Disease: Rationale for the Treatment of Patients with Infliximab.”