Grants to Boost U of L Cancer Research
Five young cancer researchers at U of L's James Graham Brown Cancer Center recently received $11.1 million for their studies to develop disease-fighting drugs and technologies.
The funds were awarded in September by the National Institutes of Health's Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program. COBRE grants give junior researchers the opportunity to produce initial data in new fields of study so that they may quickly seek individual federal research support.
The researchers are Jason Chesney, Pawel Kozlowski, Robert Mitchell, Brian Wattenberg and Hong Ye.
"These are the very best young scientists in the country," says Donald Miller, the center's director. "Their success will be crucial to taking our center where we want to go."
An additional boost came in November when the Kentucky Office for the New Economy announced that it was awarding the center a one-year, $2 million grant to advance its cancer research.
The funding and research will help the center attain its goal of being designated as a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The NCI designation is awarded to a select few centers in the nation that have demonstrated excellence in research, education and patient care.
U of L's COBRE grant recipients will use their funds for projects covering a gamut of cancer-related work including groundbreaking X-ray crystallography technology that allows molecules to be examined in three dimensions. Sen. Mitch McConnell secured equipment that will help the investigators carry out their research under the $11.1 million grant.
For more information on the COBRE studies and
researchers, go to:
www.louisville.edu/hsc/news/RECORD-BREAKING_11_1_MILLION_GRANT.shtml.
