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Kira O'Neil Bona, M.D.

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Biography
2011
American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) Research Scholar
2013
ASCO Young Investigator Award
2013
St. Baldrick's Foundation Fellow
2016
NIH/NCI K07
2018
Child Health Award
2018
Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar Leader

Overview
The Bona Lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute studies outcome disparities in childhood cancer with a focus on improving childhood cancer outcomes by systematically considering social determinants of health as risk factors in the clinical trial setting and potential targets for intervention.

One in five children diagnosed with cancer in the United States lives in poverty, and we have demonstrated that poverty is associated with higher rates of relapse, decreased overall survival, and higher symptom burden even when children are treated on clinical trials at large academic medical centers. Poverty-associated outcome disparities in this context highlight the stubborn reality that increased understanding of tumor and host biology and the development of rational therapeutics may be necessary, but not sufficient, to achieve the cures we desire. Our research is based on the premise that transformative improvements in outcome are most likely to be achieved if we expand our conceptual model of discovery and intervention beyond biology to include social determinants of health outcomes at every stage in pediatric cancer research.

?The mission of the Bona Lab is to ensure that every child diagnosed with cancer has an equal chance of survival and optimal quality-of-life during and after treatment. We aim to achieve this by uniting traditional outcomes and health services research with the robust clinical trial model of discovery and care which has steadily improved outcomes for children with cancer over the last half century. Our team is highly collaborative and leverages the expertise of colleagues conducting multicenter clinical trials and basic science translational research to consider risk factors for disease outcome from a novel lens.

Research
The research activities and funding listed below are automatically derived from NIH ExPORTER and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing items. Faculty can login to make corrections and additions.
  1. R01CA267107 (BONA, KIRA O.) Mar 1, 2022 - Feb 29, 2028
    NIH
    Novel Health Equity Intervention to Improve Pediatric Oncology Outcome Disparities: Targeting Poverty and Psychosocial Stress
    Role: Principal Investigator
  2. R03CA259894 (BONA, KIRA O.;ZHOU, ERIC S) Apr 1, 2021 - Mar 31, 2024
    NIH
    A Preventive Care Approach to Mitigate the Impact of Pediatric ALL Treatment on Sleep
    Role: Co-Principal Investigator
  3. K07CA211847 (BONA, KIRA O) Sep 20, 2016 - Feb 28, 2022
    NIH
    Material Hardship as a Targetable Measure of Poverty in Pediatric Cancer
    Role: Principal Investigator

Bibliographic
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Funded by the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences through its Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program, grant number UL1TR002541.