Latest Health research news from the around the globe: UI cancer biology researchers receive federal grants

UI cancer biology researchers receive federal grants
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admin on 22 September, 2009 04:49:00
 
The largest grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy and NASA to
Douglas Spitz, Ph.D., professor of radiation oncology and director of the Free
Radical and Radiation Biology Program. Spitz will use the three-year, nearly
$1.4 million grant to study molecular mechanisms that mediate responses to low
dose radiation exposure in cells and animals. These studies could improve
understanding of health risks from low dose radiation to both patients and
workers.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI), one of the National Institutes of Health,
has awarded a total of nearly $2.3 million through four grants:
-- Spitz also received a two-year, $363,000 grant to investigate whether
specialized high fat/low carbohydrate diets that influence cancer cell oxidative
metabolism can enhance the anti-cancer effects of radiation and chemotherapy in
mouse models of human head and neck cancer and pancreatic cancer.
--Apollina Goel, Ph.D., assistant professor of radiation oncology, received a
four-year, $1.1 million grant to study the biological effects of combining
anti-myeloma drugs and radiotherapy targeted to the skeleton to treat multiple
myeloma. The study results could improve understanding how therapy resistance
develops in myeloma. The first two years of the grant will be funded through the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
-- Frederick Domann, Ph.D., professor of radiation oncology, received a one-year
$265,823 grant to study a gene called SOD2 that appears to be involved in cancer
initiation and progression. The study will focus on how epigenetic mechanisms
(gene changes that are not initiated by gene mutations) control the expression
of SOD2 in cancer cells.
-- Andrean Simons-Burnett, Ph.D., received a five-year, $569,105 career
development/transition to independence award. Simons-Burnett will investigate
molecular targets that might be used to improve cancer therapy by enhancing
metabolic oxidative stress in animal models of head and neck cancers. Spitz is
Simon-Burnett's sponsor on the grant.
Spitz, Domann and Goel all are members of Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at
the UI.
STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa Health Care Media Relations, 200 Hawkins Drive,
Room E110 GH, Iowa City, IA  52242-1009    MEDIA CONTACT: Jennifer Brown,
319-356-7124