GRANT-ed (Continued)
Colon Cancer
Devin Lowe, PhD, received a three-year $542,982 U.S. Department of Defense grant for his research,
“Immunotherapeutic Targeting of Colon Cancer Vascularization to Achieve Long-Term
Immunity Against Primary and Metastatic Disease.”
“I am a tumor immunologist by training,” Lowe said. “My entire world-view is that the immune system can be appropriately utilized to prevent/destroy tumor growth…So my motivation is to continue to do the type of research necessary to better understand the immune system — in relation to cancer — so that we can improve patients’ long-term responses to cancer immunotherapy.”
Read more about Lowe’s funding in this Daily Dose story.
Neuroblastoma
Min H. Kang, PharmD, and Patrick Reynolds, PhD, received a five-year $2 million grant for their research, “MYC Activation in
Tumor Progression of Neuroblastoma;” and a three-year $1.6 million grant from the
Childhood Cancer Repository and Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, “Characterization
of a Panel of Neuroblastoma Patient-Derived Models for Preclinical Therapeutic Studies.”
$1.6 Million Grant
In spite of major improvements in treating high-risk neuroblastoma over the past two
decades, greater than 50 percent of recurring high-risk neuroblastoma patients still
die of the disease, according to the researchers’ study abstract. They are proposing to greatly expand the data available on a large panel of neuroblastoma
cell lines and tumors growing in mice.
Reynolds also received a separate five-year $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute for his research, “Alternate Telomere Maintenance Mechanisms in High-Risk Neuroblastoma as Prognostic Indicators and Therapeutic Targets.”
“Neuroblastoma is childhood cancer that can spontaneously regress without therapy or relentless progress in spite of intensive chemotherapy. For continual cell growth cancer cells must maintain the ends of chromosomes (called telomeres) which erode if not maintained by telomere maintenance mechanisms (TMM). We will study TMM in neuroblastoma to develop novel biomarkers to aid in defining prognosis for patients and to develop novel therapeutic targets,” according to the grant abstract.