Newswise — PHILADELPHIA—(May 17, 2016)—Principal investigators at The Wistar Institute, an international biomedical research leader in cancer, immunology and infectious diseases, have secured more than $6.5 million in research grants so far this year. The awards include a National Cancer Institute (NCI) grant totaling more than $3.3 million that supports development of blood-based biomarkers to aid in lung cancer detection.Advancing their work on a more accurate, non-invasive blood test that could detect lung cancer at a very early stage before it spreads and thus improve patient outcomes, Louise Showe, Ph.D., professor in Wistar’s Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis Program, and Qihong Huang, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in Wistar’s Tumor Microenvironment and Metastasis Program, were awarded a major NCI grant totaling $3,355,655 over five years. Their project will carry out a larger study to analyze almost 800 blood samples and further develop a highly accurate biomarker to help distinguish which lung nodules detected by low density CT scans are benign and which are malignant. Additional partners on the project are Christiana Care Health System’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute, NYU Langone Medical Center, and the Jersey Shore University Medical Center all of which are providing patient blood samples for research.
In addition, the following three Wistar scientists have recently received NCI awards:
Furthering research on how Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infects host cells to provide new insights in the development an anti-EBV drug, Paul M. Lieberman, Ph.D., Hilary Koprowski, M.D., Endowed Professor, professor and program leader of Wistar’s Gene Expression and Regulation Program and director of Wistar’s Center for Chemical Biology and Translational Medicine, received a National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research award totaling $2,367,500 over five years. EBV is a cancer-causing virus and member of the herpes virus family responsible for diseases including infectious mononucleosis, Burkitt’s lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, gastric cancer, and others. Collaborating on this project is Kyoung Jae Won, Ph.D., research assistant professor of Genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.
Wistar senior staff scientist Costin Tomescu, Ph.D., works at the forefront of HIV Cure research in the lab of Luis J. Montaner, D.V.M., D.Phil., professor and director of the HIV-1 Immunopathogenesis Laboratory. Tomescu received a National Institute on Drug Abuse grant in the amount of $524,983 over two years for research into the mechanisms of HIV resistance.
Research into how myeloid-derived suppressor cells play a role in regulating the immune system and cancer progression, Yulia Nefedova, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Tumor Microenvironment and Metastasis Program, was awarded an NCI grant totaling $467,835 over two years to study how a protein called S100A9 contributes to the pathogenesis of multiple myeloma and to test a novel therapy based on the targeting of this protein.
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The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical research with special expertise in cancer research and vaccine development. Founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the U.S., Wistar has held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute since 1972. The Institute works actively to ensure that research advances move from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible. wistar.org.
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