International Grant Funds Pediatric Cancer Research
Mays Cancer Center Annual Report
Alexander Bishop, DPhil, at UT Health San Antonio and Professor Kevin Hiom, PhD, at the University of Dundee, Scotland, were awarded a grant from the Stand Up To Cancer and Cancer Research UK’s Pediatric Cancer New Discoveries Challenge, which funds international teams studying hard-to-treat pediatric cancer.
Drs. Bishop and Hiom are teaming up to investigate a unique biological hallmark of Ewing sarcoma, a type of cancer that affects bones and the surrounding tissue and has very limited treatment options. The focus of their study involves R-loops, which are present in higher amounts in Ewing sarcoma and are caused by the same genetic alteration that drives this pediatric cancer. The team hopes to create a drug that will impact R-loop accumulation and eliminate these cancer cells.
Dr. Bishop, associate professor of cell systems and anatomy in the Long School of Medicine, trained at Oxford and Harvard before joining the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute in 2005.
