UAB Department of Surgery Division of Breast and Endocrine Surgery Assistant Professor Lily A. Gutnik, M.D., has been awarded a K08 grant from the National Institutes of Health for her project titled, “Global Breast and Cervical Cancer Control: Implementing a Bundled Screening Approach in a Resource Limited Setting.”
The K08 award's purpose is to provide support and protected time to postdoctoral scholars, clinical fellows, and junior clinician-scientists for intensive, supervised research.
Gutnik’s proposed project start date is March 1, 2025 and is projected to end on February 2030. She will receive $954,958 total for the 5-year period of the NCI K08.
Gutnik is the Department of Surgery’s Associate Vice Chair of Global Surgery Equity, and the Assistant Program Director for Global Surgery for the General Surgery Residency Program. Her K08 research will focus on how, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 75% of women diagnosed with breast and cervical cancer are already in the advanced or late-stage of the disease. A key contributor to this is the shortage of screening and early detection programs. Gutnik will be working with a large Cameroonian Health System who is already integrating breast and cervical cancer screening and together will work to create a strategy that allows the breast and cervical cancer screening process to become a single cancer and control prevention service in places with limited resources like Cameroon.
By integrating breast and cervical cancer screening into a single, more accessible service, we can empower communities with limited resources to take control of their health, and increase the number of early detections, ultimately saving lives,” said Gutnik. “Our goal is to create a sustainable program that addresses the immediate needs of the community but also looks ahead to their health, long-term.”
In 2022 Gutnik was selected as a member of the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) international committee and she was named a UAB Sparkman Center for Global Health Scholar. From 2022-2024 she served on the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS) global affairs committee. Gutnik has served on the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBRS) since 2024. She currently holds a career development award (CDA) in the American Society of Clinical Oncology. She mentors to two fellows, Autumn Beavers,M.D., and Madhushree Zope, M.D., who are currently working in Tanzania and Malawi. Gutnik has and continues to lead and collaborate on various breast cancer projects and initiatives in Tanzania, Kenya, and Cameroon.