Chi Luo received funding from Outrun the Sun, Inc. to support his postdoctoral research program entitled “Exploring ERRa as a therapeutic target in a subset of oxidative melanomas” conducted at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Dr. Luo has been working on the interplay between metabolism and metastasis in melanoma, trying to uncover novel metabolic targets suitable for combating melanoma progression. Building on their team’s previous studies that a subset of melanoma highly depends on oxidative metabolism for survival, Chi identified a druggable protein ERRa as a putative factor mediating this metabolic dependency. With the support from Outrun the Sun, Inc., Chi tested the contributions of ERRa to melanoma pathogenesis, and concluded that in preclinical model systems, pharmacologically targeting ERRa is effective in a selective subset of oxidative melanoma. In conclusion, this study provides mechanistic basis for further exploring ERRa as a tangible therapeutic target in aggressive melanoma.