NEW YORK, April 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The DeGregorio Family Foundation with support from the Torrey Coast Foundation has awarded $250,000 to Timothy C. Wang, MD, Chief, Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases, Silberberg Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine and Irving Cancer Research Center, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, to complete his 2025 grant for $500,000. The Grant is named in memory of Michael F. Price, the noted value investor and philanthropist, who was an early supporter of the DeGregorio Family Foundation. 

Dr. Wang, who is an expert in the molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis, hopes to accelerate a novel therapy – Modified Trefoil Factor Family 2 (TFF2-MSA) – into clinical use for gastroesophageal cancer.

He said, "We are grateful to the DeGregorio Family Foundation for its unique focus on gastroesophageal (GE) cancers and for supporting our studies. Our work involves the evaluation of novel therapies for GE cancers and identifying biomarkers that will help determine patient groups most likely to benefit from this therapy."

Stomach cancer remains one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide with over 30,000 new cases being diagnosed each year in the U.S. alone. While immunotherapy with "checkpoint blockade drugs" is emerging as a major recourse for gastric cancer treatment, especially to treat cancers that have spread, the response to checkpoint blockade is often poor because of other cells in the vicinity of the tumor, such as immunosuppressive neutrophils (white blood cells) that inhibit the ability of T cells to kill the tumor. Furthermore, these neutrophils are abundant in advanced gastric cancers and are thought to indicate a bad prognosis. 

Dr Wang and his team's previous studies have shown that a small, naturally secreted peptide called TFF2, can regulate these "bad" neutrophils. They also observed that TFF2 preserved the "good" tumor-inhibitory neutrophils; and selectively targeted the 'bad' suppressive neutrophils for destruction by binding through a surface receptor and thus allowing more T cells to infiltrate and destroy the tumor. In numerous studies in mice with stomach cancer, high levels of the TFF2 peptide led to a significant tumor reduction and better survival. We also found that attaching albumin (a large protein in the blood), to the TFF2 peptide (TFF2-MSA) makes it more stable and effective and could allow for less frequent dosing. The TFF2-MSA can also be combined with other drugs to improve therapeutic effectiveness. 

In 2022, gastric and esophageal cancers combined killed over 1.1 million people worldwide.  Patients continue to face poor  prognoses following gastric and esophageal cancer diagnoses due to their chemo-resistant behavior and ability to metastasize.

"Dr. Wang's research is incredibly promising and moves us significantly closer to launching a clinical trial – and ultimately, a potential cure," said Lynn DeGregorio, President and Founder of the DeGregorio Family Foundation.

The DeGregorio Family Foundation, founded in 2006 after a 10th member of the DeGregorio family died of stomach cancer, has raised more than $15 million to fund innovative research to cure gastric and esophageal cancers. It is the only public foundation solely focused on funding research grants for both of these cancers.

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SOURCE DeGregorio Family Foundation