December 2024 – Lauren Averett Byers, M.D., professor of Thoracic/Head & Neck Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, has received the 2025 Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Medicine from the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology (TAMEST). The award recognizes her fundamental discoveries and contributions to identifying novel therapeutic strategies for small cell lung cancer (SCLC), which have paved the way for personalized treatments, even in the most highly recalcitrant cancers.
The O’Donnell Awards support exceptional Texas researchers addressing the essential roles that science and technology play in society, and demonstrating the highest standards of professional performance, creativity and resourcefulness. The recognition is given annually in five categories. Byers will be honored during the TAMEST Annual Conference and 2025 O’Donnell Awards ceremony in February in Houston.
“Receiving the O’Donnell Award is a distinct honor, and I am hopeful this recognition will propel further research in small cell lung cancer,” Byers said. “I’m especially grateful to my team of exceptional scientists and clinicians, who have worked together to translate our research findings to address unmet needs by providing new, more personalized treatment options for our patients.”
Internationally recognized as a SCLC expert, Byers led a team of researchers to develop the first comprehensive framework to classify the disease into four unique subtypes based on gene expression. In a study published in Cancer Cell, her team also identified potential therapeutic targets for each SCLC subtype. This approach to subtyping SCLC resulted in subsequent seminal publications that identify which patients are most likely to benefit from immunotherapy.
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“Dr. Byers is an established leader in the field and a uniquely gifted scientist and physician. She is poised to continue to make important contributions to lung cancer research and the treatment of cancer, broadly,” said Giulio Draetta, M.D., Ph.D., chief scientific officer at MD Anderson. “This recognition underscores her commitment to rigorous, exemplary science – an essential hallmark of our efforts to advance research and develop powerful new treatments for our patients.”
As a physician-scientist, Byers focuses her research on high-throughput molecular profiling to identify new therapeutic targets, predictive biomarkers and mechanisms of resistance in SCLC. She has rapidly advanced these findings into clinical trials and leads a multidisciplinary translational research team that leverages tumors and liquid biopsies from patients with lung cancer to accelerate the development of personalized treatments and biomarkers.
Byers has led a number of clinical trials exploring innovative new treatments, including the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for patients with SCLC. Her contributions in SCLC have been recognized in a National Cancer Institute report to the U.S. Congress as among the most impactful advances in the past decade.
“Dr. Byers is an outstanding medical oncologist and translational scientist, and we have already seen her work change standards of care for patients with small cell lung cancer,” said nominator James P. Allison, Ph.D., regental professor and chair of Immunology and director of the James P. Allison Institute at MD Anderson. “We celebrate her contributions to the field of cancer research, as she excels in both translating fundamental research findings and in mentoring the next generation of research leaders.”
She joined MD Anderson in 2006 as a clinical fellow and later became an advanced scholar fellow. Since then, Byers’ contributions to the field have earned numerous awards from peers, funding institutions and scientific journals. She co-leads several translational and clinical lung cancer research programs at MD Anderson and is co-principal investigator of the NIH/NCI SCLC Consortium Coordinating Center. Byers is an active mentor for undergraduates, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and clinical fellows. Her mentees have earned recognition with awards and grants and have advanced to faculty positions at leading institutions, including MD Anderson.
