Their Story
Dr. Lovly received the 2017 LCFA/IASLC Lori Monroe Scholarship for Translational Lung Cancer Research. Since then, Dr. Lovly has become a leader in the lung cancer research community and received additional funding to continue her research.
As of 2024, Christine M. Lovly, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Medicine with tenure at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. She received a B.A. in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University followed by M.D. and Ph.D. degrees as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She then completed internal medicine residency and medical oncology subspecialty training at Vanderbilt University. During her final year of fellowship, she was the Jim and Carol O’Hare Chief Fellow. She started on faculty at Vanderbilt in July 2013 as a physician-scientist, splitting her time between clinical care and laboratory research. Her laboratory research is directed at understanding and developing improved therapeutic strategies for specific clinically relevant molecular subsets of lung cancer.
Grants Awarded
2017 LCFA/IASLC Lori Monroe Scholarship for Translational Lung Cancer Research
Dr. Lovly was chosen for the Class of 2017 of Lung Cancer Foundation of America/International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Lori Monroe Scholarships in Translational Lung Cancer Research. Her LCFA-funded research involves small cell lung cancer.
About the LCFA-Funded Research
Dr. Lovly’s research at Vanderbilt University focuses on using blood samples to study small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Her team is tracking how pieces of cancer DNA in blood (called cfDNA) can show how well treatments work and if the cancer returns. They also developed a method to isolate and analyze circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which could help understand cancer spread and resistance. Additionally, they are investigating if certain genetic mutations make people more likely to get SCLC. They also explore how the immune system interacts with SCLC to improve treatments.
