Binaytara Lung Cancer Research Award

Rajat Thawani, MD, is a a board-certified medical oncologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute in Portland, Oregon.

Dr. Thawani pitched “Clonal Hematopoiesis Genotype as a Selection Biomarker for Combination Immunotherapy in Lung Cancer" at Binaytara's 2026 Seattle Lung Cancer Conference.

Most patients with advanced lung cancer now receive immunotherapy, but most do not see lasting benefit, and doctors choose treatment based only on the tumor without considering the patient’s own immune system. Dr. Thawani is studying whether common age-related genetic changes in a patient’s blood cells, which can be detected with a routine blood test, can show which patients would benefit from adding existing drugs to immunotherapy, potentially giving a second chance to treatments that failed in earlier trials because those trials didn’t target the right patients.

"We are very excited for this Binaytara award to open up a new strategy of using mutations in immune cells to determine what immunotherapy will work best for patients," said Dr. Thawani’s mentor at OHSU's Knight Cancer Institute, Megan Burger, PhD.