American Cancer Society Funds Research Grants

American Cancer Society
Tuesday, 25 June 2002

Allocations provide more than $54 million for cancer research

The American Cancer Society, the nation's leading voluntary health organization — and the largest non-government, not-for-profit funding source of cancer research in the United States — recently announced 154 research and training grants, totaling $54 million, to begin July 1, 2002. Of these grants, 39 were renewals and 115 were new awards. For the fiscal year ending August 31, 2002, the American Cancer Society has funded 239 research and training grants, totaling more than $100.5 million.

"Since the American Cancer Society started funding research in 1946, we have spent more than $2.4 billion in pursuit of better methods to prevent, detect and treat cancer," said Harmon J. Eyre, MD, national chief medical officer for the Society. "The Society is proud to be the only private funding source that can claim 32 researchers who have gone on to win the Nobel prize."

This year's research awards include 35 postdoctoral fellowships, 59 research scholar grants for beginning investigators, four targeted research grants directed at poor and underserved populations, 15 institutional research grants and 36 health professional training grants.

The three largest research scholar grants for beginning investigators were for $864,000 over a four-year period, and were awarded to Jin Chen, PhD, Vanderbilt University; William J. Murphy, PhD, University of Nevada; and Karen Smith-McCune, MD, PhD, University of California, San Francisco. Another of the research scholar grants being funded was for Dr. Gloria Borgstahl, a biochemist at the University of Toledo in Ohio, for her work in basic molecular processes with proteins that cause breast cancer. Recently, NASA's space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth with the first biological crystals that she grew on the international space station.

Among the health professional training grants, four Cancer Control Career Development Awards for Primary Care Physicians were awarded, the largest number funded at one time, totaling nearly $660,000. These junior faculty members will pursue academic careers with an emphasis on cancer control.

In addition, 86 applications, ranked excellent to outstanding by the peer review committees, were approved for funding if additional funds become available through cancellations of awarded grants or by special donations for research.

The American Cancer Society is the nationwide community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy and service.

For more information, or to contact American Cancer Society, see their website at: www.cancer.org