The National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a $391,703 Project Grant (CFDA 93.394 - Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research) to The Regents of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to improve the reproducibility, speed, and physiological relevance of patient-derived cancer organoid models for preclinical drug testing and disease modeling. The key objectives are to: Develop rapid, sensitive, and reproducible platforms for screening drugs using cancer organoids derived from breast...
The University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) was awarded a $2,186,372 Project Grant from the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Biology Research program (CFDA 93.396) to conduct research on "Tipping Points in Cancer". The five-year project, starting on April 1, 2025 and ending on March 31, 2030, will investigate fundamental processes involved in cancer initiation and progression through three integrated research projects. The projects will leverage mouse models to study stochastic,...
This National Cancer Institute (CFDA 93.396 Cancer Biology Research) Project Grant award to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the amount of $560,297 will fund a 5-year research project to functionally characterize "oncofetal stem cells" in colorectal cancer (CRC). The project aims to: Generate reporters to track the dynamics of CRC stem cell populations, including oncofetal stem cells and LGR5+ cancer stem cells. The researchers will then use these reporters coupled to a...
This $631,156 federal Project Grant awarded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) under the Cancer Cause and Prevention Research program (CFDA 93.393) supports research to uncover core mechanisms facilitating lineage plasticity (LP) in EGFR-mutant lung cancer. The primary objectives are to systematically assess the epigenetic, transcriptional, and signaling changes underlying the transformation from lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) to the more aggressive small cell lung cancer (SCLC) phenotype. The...
The National Cancer Institute (CFDA 93.396 - Cancer Biology Research) awarded a $392,187 Project Grant to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) to investigate how the stiffness of the tumor microenvironment in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) induces "mechanical memory" that contributes to tumor invasion, metastasis, and recurrence. The project aims to elucidate the mechanisms by which OSCC cells acquire and consolidate this mechanical memory, which allows them to recall...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a $942,442 Project Grant under the Cancer Cause and Prevention Research (CFDA 93.393) program to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Inc. (DFCI) in Boston, MA. The grant, effective September 1, 2024, supports research to identify the mechanisms driving rapid evolution of cancer genomes, with a focus on understanding the processes of chromothripsis and chromoplexy. The research aims to advance the fundamental knowledge of these catastrophic mutational...
This federal Project Grant award from the National Cancer Institute (CFDA 93.396 - Cancer Biology Research) provides $683,979.00 to the Weill Medical College of Cornell University to conduct research on the role of early oncogenic drivers in maintaining lineage fidelity in prostate cancer. The research aims to: Define the propensity of prostate cancers harboring SPOP mutations to progress to specific subtypes of treatment-resistant castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). Mechanistically...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) award of $575,000 to the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) will support research to understand how the microstructure and interstitial fluid pressure gradient can modulate cell invasion in a bioprinted tumor-on-a-chip model. The 3-year project aims to create a biomimetic solid tumor model using light-assisted bioprinting and microfluidics to explore how matrix properties and fluid-induced pressure gradients regulate...
This federal Project Grant award, totaling $194,292, was provided by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) under the Cancer Research Manpower (CFDA 93.398) program. The grant was awarded to The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, doing business as the Health Sciences Division, to investigate the cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic mechanisms governing lung cancer cell plasticity and tumor evolution. The key objectives of this research project are to quantitatively track cancer...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a Project Grant (CFDA 93.393 - Cancer Cause and Prevention Research) to the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) to assess strategies for targeting transcriptional co-activators in colorectal cancer. The $439,367 award will fund a 5-year research project focused on understanding how the transcriptional coactivator PGC-1B promotes the survival of colorectal cancer cells, particularly in tumors with K-RAS mutations. The project aims to identify...