NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Prostate Cancer Foundation has awarded $1 million in grants to ten researchers in order to support "innovative ideas that have the potential to achieve breakthroughs for the detection and treatment of prostate cancer," including $400,000 for biomarker studies and DNA mapping, gene expression, and microRNA studies, PCF said on Monday.
The Creativity Awards grant $100,000 for one year to researchers who have not previously received PCF funding, while 70 percent of the grant winners historically have gone on to receive multi-year funding from the PCF and other sources, the foundation said.
"These awards feed our pipeline of compelling ideas to cultivate new solutions for the prostate cancer problem," PCF Executive VP and Chief Scientific Officer Howard Soule said in a statement. "Promising results will translate into better therapies for patients with advanced prostate cancer."
Cory Abate-Shen of Columbia University Medical Center will receive the Gordon Becker Creativity Award to study all the dysfunctional regulatory and signaling molecules that man and mouse have in common. The goal is to find targets for prostate cancer drugs by using mouse model testing.
Barbara Graves of the University of Utah will receive the Michael Vinecki Creativity Award to study over-expression of Ets genes, which could be the cause of over 40 to 60 percent of prostate cancer cases, according to PCF. She plans to map the DNA regions that bind the Ets proteins, which could be used to discover molecules that may help interrupt carcinogenesis.
David Nanus of Weill Cornell Medical College will use the Dan Fogelberg Creativity Award to study new capture technology for a biomarker that could help identify patients who may respond well to the drug Taxotere, as well as those who may have unwanted side effects.
Muneesh Tewari of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will use the Arnie's Army Creativity Award to isolate exosomes and to purify microRNAs from prostate cancer models in order to develop personalized treatments.