CPRIT Awards $10.3 Million for Five Grants
Mays Cancer Center Annual Report
The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) awarded more than $10.3 million on Aug. 19, 2020, to the Mays Cancer Center. The five grants included $6 million to recruit David Gius, MD, PhD, a breast cancer and radiation oncology researcher, and $2 million to recruit Peng Zhao, PhD, a liver cancer researcher.
CPRIT also awarded three grants to individual cancer researchers:
Dmitri Ivanov, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and structural biology, received an Individual Investigator Research Award for Cancer in Children and Adolescents in the amount of $1,198,659. Dr. Ivanov’s team is interested in identifying and optimizing small molecules for drug development. The team includes Raushan Kurmasheva, PhD,
at the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute and Stanton McHardy, PhD, at The University of Texas at San Antonio.
Mingjiang Xu, MD, PhD, professor of molecular medicine and the San Antonio Cancer Council Distinguished Chair in Oncology, received an Individual Investigator Award of $900,000. Dr. Xu is interested in long non-coding RNAs, which if dysregulated play major roles in the development and progression of
many cancers. One of these molecules is HOTTIP, and Dr. Xu’s team seeks to understand its role in leukemia initiation.
Luiz Penalva, PhD, professor of cell systems and anatomy and an investigator at the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute, received a High-Impact/High-Risk Award of $249,968.
Dr. Penalva is studying RNA-binding proteins, which function as master regulators of gene expression. In a recent publication, Dr. Penalva and coauthors identified the RNA-binding protein SERBP1 as a novel regulator of glioblastoma development.
