FCF congratulates Ilaria Gritti, PhD, on receiving an NCI K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, a prestigious career-development award that helps promising postdoctoral researchers transition to independent research careers.

Ilaria Gritti, a postdoctoral fellow in Nabeel Bardeesy’s laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, studies the biology of fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC). Her new award will support research investigating how the DNAJB1::PRKACA fusion rewires mitochondrial dynamics and metabolism in FLC, with the goal of better understanding the disease and ultimately identifying new opportunities for treatment.

Building on research previously supported by FCF, Ilaria Gritti and colleagues reported in Cancer Discovery in 2025 that the DNAJB1::PRKACA fusion reprograms the activity of genes within FLC cells, helping reveal how this defining genetic change drives the cancer.

Congratulations to Ilaria Gritti on this well-deserved achievement and this exciting next step in her FLC research!