A $5.3 million School of Public Health grant awarded to the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences will support advanced cancer research in Oklahoma. The Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant is designed to build research capacity and help early stage researchers establish independently funded laboratories.
This is the third and final phase of the COBRE grant, which was first awarded in 2012, followed by a second phase in 2017. The grant has supported and matched the growth of the OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center, an selected cancer of the OU Health Institute.
Danny Dhanasekaran, Ph.D., professor of cell biology in the OU College of Medicine and associate director of basic research at the Stephenson Cancer Center, has led the grant’s work since its inception.
COBRE’s third grant is a testament to the great strides we’ve made over the past decade in advancing cancer research in Oklahoma. With the continued support of the NIH, we are poised to take significant strides in understanding and overcoming the challenges of cancer, ultimately improving outcomes for cancer patients in Oklahoma and across the country. “
Danny Dhanasekaran, PhD, Professor, Cell Biology, College of Medicine, University of Oklahoma
As part of the COBRE grant, established researchers advise early stage researchers on important steps and pitfalls to avoid when starting their careers. Early researchers conduct research and publish studies that they use to apply for larger grants to support their laboratories. They also immerse themselves in the collaborative world of group technology.
“Research has become so vast that one team cannot have all the knowledge,” Dhanasekaran said. For example, a researcher may know how to tease out how a cancer cell ‘talks’ to another cancer cell to grow, but they may not be good at drug delivery , so they collaborate with a laboratory that is good at that. . If we want to reduce the burden of cancer in our society, we need this collaborative approach.
One of the main objectives of COBRE’s grant is to build scientific infrastructure for cancer research. The Stephenson Cancer Center has supported this effort to obtain advanced equipment, often sophisticated imaging technology that monitors cell growth over time and shows the internal structure of cancer cells. New researchers have been hired to use the tools, a workforce-building effort that benefits Oklahoma.
Since the first COBRE grant was awarded, seven of the 10 participating early stage researchers have received a combined $22 million in funding, allowing them to fully operate their laboratories at OU Health Science in funds generated by the strength of their studies. Their research also produced 250 journal articles focusing on the topic of drug resistance assistance and reduction strategies.
“Drug resistance is a major problem in cancer treatment,” said Dhanasekaran. “A patient may undergo surgery or receive chemotherapy to kill the primary cancer, but when it comes back, it is often resistant to the drugs. Our researchers are looking at many types of cancer to better understand whether they are resistant to how, they hope to find a cancer risk point where we can provide a more effective treatment.”
Advances in cancer treatment remain a major need in Oklahoma, where cancer is the second leading cause of death. In 2023, an estimated 23,420 people were diagnosed with cancer and 8,620 lost their lives to the disease. Oklahoma has the fourth highest rate of cancer deaths in the United States.
About one out of every six Oklahomans diagnosed with cancer receives treatment at the Stephenson Cancer Center, which provides advanced care driven by research discoveries. The success of the COBRE grant has contributed to the cancer center’s milestones, including its designation by the National Cancer Institute in 2018 and its renewal in 2023. That support will continue as the Stephenson Cancer Center works to at the NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center level, the center’s highest honor. oncology.
“The work of the COBRE grant under Dr. Dhanasekaran has been critical to our work at the Stephenson Cancer Center,” said director Robert Mannel, MD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the OU College of Medicine. “Promising young researchers have established their mentors on our campus, and we have built a solid research base to advance their studies. Ultimately, their discoveries will improve our ability to prevent and treat cancer to the people we serve.”
The University of Oklahoma has four other COBRE centers: On the Norman campus, the Oklahoma Center of Biomedical Research Excellence in Structural Biology and the Oklahoma Center of Medical Imaging for Translational Cancer Research; and on the OU Health Sciences campus, the Oklahoma Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunity and the Oklahoma Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging.
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