Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas awards grants

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) has awarded physicians and scientists from Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital a combined $9,266,605 for seven projects in breast cancer, childhood cancers, T Cell therapy and lung cancer prevention.

The awards, announced yesterday by CPRIT, are among the 42 new academic research grants, seven prevention grants and five product development grants totaling close to $96 million to advance the fight against cancer.

Individual Investigator Research Awards

Dr. Rachel Schiff, associate professor in the Breast Center and member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, was awarded $899,566 for her project, Targeting the Mechanism of Hyperactive FOXA1 in Transcriptional Reprogramming Toward Endocrine Resistance and Metastasis in Breast Cancer.

Individual Investigator Awards for Cancer in Children and Adolescents

For his research project, Multiomic Biomarker Discovery for Therapy-Related Neurocognitive Impairment in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Dr. Austin L. Brown, assistant professor of pediatrics – hematology/oncology and member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, was awarded $1,187,006.

Dr. Cory Noel, assistant professor of pediatrics – cardiology, received $1,192,412 for his project, Utilization of Imaging and Serum Biomarkers to Predict the Development of Cardiac Dysfunction in Childhood Cancer Survivors.

Dr. Debananda Pati, professor of pediatrics-oncology and member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, was awarded $1,189,218 for his project, Development of a Precision Drug to Target STAG2 (SA2)– Mutant Ewing Sarcoma.

Individual Investigator Research Awards for Clinical Translation

Dr. Andras Heczey, assistant professor of pediatrics-oncology and member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, received $2,400,000 for his research project, Interleukin-15– and -21– Armored Glypican-3–Specific CAR T Cells for Patients With Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

For her project titled Improving T-Cell Therapy of Neuroblastoma With a Novel Cytokine Modulator: A Phase 1 Clinical Trial, Dr. Cliona M. Rooney, professor of pediatrics – hematology/oncology and cell and gene therapy, was awarded $1,499,252.

Individual Investigator Research Awards for Prevention and Early Detection

Dr. Bhagavatula Moorthy, professor of pediatrics – neonatology and member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, received $899,151 for his project, Mechanisms of Prevention of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) – Mediated Lung Carcinogenesis by Omega3 Fatty Acids.

“Grants from CPRIT are essential to advancing cancer research and care and enable us to support physicians and researchers right here in Texas,” said Dr. Kent Osborne, director of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor.

CPRIT has awarded 1,372 grants totaling more than $2.26 billion to Texas researchers, institutions and organizations. CPRIT is now past the two-thirds mark in the state’s historical 2007 constitutional commitment of $3 billion to fight cancer.