The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas approved 15 grants in November totaling nearly $18.4 million for North Texas researchers and institutions in its latest funding round, part of a statewide investment of almost $154 million announced Nov. 19.
UT Southwestern Medical Center dominated the region’s awards with 13 grants spanning recruitment, prevention, and research. UT Dallas captured two research grants.
“Texas has invested $4 billion in the fight against one of the world’s greatest public health challenges,” said CPRIT CEO Kristen Doyle, herself a cancer survivor.
Doyle said the support has helped the state lead the search for breakthrough treatments, develop new cancer-fighting drugs and devices, and save “tens of thousands of lives through early cancer detection and prevention.”
Dallas-Fort Worth CPRIT recipients and their respective categories include:
Recruitment
CPRIT awarded $2 million to UT Southwestern to recruit Elijah Mena to Dallas.
Prevention
UT Southwestern received two prevention grants totaling nearly $5 million.
Keith E. Argenbright at UT Southwestern in Fort Worth received $2.5 million for “Increasing Access to Cervical Cancer Screening and Patient Navigation in North Texas.”
David Gerber UT Southwestern in Dallas received $2.4 million for “Integrated lung cancer screening and tobacco cessation.”
Research
The research category drew 12 awards worth nearly $12 million.
Saikat Mukhopadhyay at UT Southwestern in Dallas received $1.2 million for “Study of primary cilium maintenance as a dependency in SHH medulloblastoma.”
Jie Zheng at UT Dallas in Richardson received $900,000 for “High-contrast fluorescence imaging of non-enhancing brain metastases.”
Payal Kapur at UT Southwestern in Dallas received $1 million for “Advancing Clinical Decision-Making through Machine Learning on Underutilized Data.”
Tao Yue at UT Southwestern in Dallas received $900,000 for “Overcoming Immunotherapy Resistance for the Treatment of Renal Cell Carcinoma.”
Michalis Agathocleous at UT Southwestern in Dallas received $900,000 for “Mechanisms of blood cancer suppression by ascorbate.”
YI LI at UT Dallas in Richardson received $899,216 for “Antisense Oligonucleotide Targeting Strategies for NAB2-STAT6 Solitary Fibrous Tumors.”
Tuoqi Wu at UT Southwestern in Dallas received $1.2 million for “Target the Redox Sensing Pathway to Enhance Anti-Tumor T-cell Immunity.”
Deepak Nijhawan at UT Southwestern in Dallas received $898,004 for “Development of tumor activated IMPDH inhibitors to treat glioblastoma.”
Zhenyu Zhong at UT Southwestern in Dallas received $900,000 for “Sympathetic Innervation Controls the Development of Obesity-Associated Liver Cancer.”
Gerta Hoxhaj at UT Southwestern in Dallas received $900,000 for “Decoding Compartmentalized Redox Metabolism in Melanoma Metastasis.”
Kathryn O’Donnell at UT Southwestern in Dallas received $900,000 for “Oncogenic activity and therapeutic targeting of serine protease TMPRSS11B in lung cancer.”
David Gerber at UT Southwestern in Dallas received $894,790 for “Mechanisms and treatment of immunotherapy toxicity.”
The statewide funding round approved 73 grants and pushed CPRIT’s total investment past $4 billion, making Texas the largest state funder of cancer research in the nation. CPRIT stands as the second-largest funder of cancer research in the country after the National Cancer Institute.
“Every Texan should know this effort matters, and we’re not finished yet,” Doyle said. “Together, we will conquer cancer.”
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