In 2007, the United States Congress declared May National Cancer Research Month. This month, the University of Arizona Cancer Center is joining the American Association for Cancer Research's national campaign to raise awareness of the importance of cancer research and the progress that research institutions are making in critical areas of research and patient care.
The University of Arizona Cancer Center is a National Cancer Institute-designed Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of 41 in the nation and the only one headquartered in and serving the entire state of Arizona. Our mission is simple — to prevent and cure cancer. Every day our physicians and scientists conduct leading-edge research and bring the latest advances in cancer treatment directly to our patients.
In honor of National Cancer Research Month, please take a moment to learn more about research at the University of Arizona Cancer Center and consider supporting our efforts to find a cure.
Here are a few highlights of the many research efforts under way at the University of Arizona Cancer Center:
- University of Arizona Postdoctoral Research Fellow Tomas Nuño, PhD, was awarded a $325,000 grant from the National Cancer Institute's Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities to study cancer outcomes among underserved populations.
- The University of Arizona Early Phase Chemoprevention Consortium led by UA Cancer Center researchers Sherry Chow, PhD, and David Alberts, MD, has been awarded funding by the National Cancer Institute to conduct early-phase clinical trials to evaluate the safety, clinical activity, and biological effects of novel cancer preventive agents. This five-year award will total up to $9.6 million.
- The Better Than Ever fitness outreach program aims to help integrate fitness into daily life while raising funds for UA Cancer Center researchers. In 2008, the grant review committee awarded $25,000 to junior investigator Jennifer Bea, PhD, to study “Prevention of Frailty in Breast Cancer Survivors.”
- The Basic-Clinical Partnerships Research Grant program at the University of Arizona Cancer Center supports collaborative translational research pilot projects. This funding mechanism, supported by the UA Cancer Center Support Grant, is designed to promote translational research projects that are led by both a basic scientist and a clinician. Grant recipients were chosen by a scientific review committee comprised of University of Arizona faculty, and the grant distribution for 2012 will fund four teams of investigators for a total of $90,000. Funded topics include colon cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer and lymphoma.
- Lisa M. Rimsza, MD, a professor of pathology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and a member of the Therapeutic Development scientific program at The University of Arizona Cancer Center, has been awarded $2.96 million from the National Cancer Institute to study molecular diagnosis and prognosis in aggressive lymphoma.
- University of Arizona Cancer Center member Ronald S. Weinstein, MD, professor of pathology in the College of Medicine and professor of public policy in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, was honored March 6 by the University of Arizona with the 2012 Technology Innovation Award. The Technology Innovation Award is given annually in recognition of exemplary innovative achievement in translating original ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace.
- University of Arizona Cancer Center member Mark “Marty” Pagel, PhD, will receive a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the effectiveness of personalized baking soda therapy to treat breast cancer.
- University of Arizona Cancer Center member G. Timothy Bowden, PhD, is part of a research team looking into a potential link between Parkinson’s disease and an increased risk of melanoma.
- University of Arizona Cancer Center member Greg Rogers, PhD, was recently awarded a $660,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to further his research on the assembly of the centrosome — an organelle that can influence genomic instability and tumor formation.
- Terry Badger, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC, FAAN, has been awarded a five-year, $1.3 million grant by the American Cancer Society for her study, “Support for Latinas with breast cancer and their intimate and family partners.”
- Nearly 200 active clinical trials offering patients promising therapies well before they are commercially available. Learn more: Find a Clinical Trial
More from the American Association for Cancer Research:
- Facts About Cancer
- What is Cancer? - A CR story about more than 100 diseases that are all called "cancer"
- CR Podcasts - Information about people with cancer and news and progress in cancer research
- CR magazine, an award-winning magazine about people and progress in cancer research
- AACR Facts & Figures 2013
May 7, 2013
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