Federal Project Grant Award Summary

Award Overview The National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a Project Grant of $550,084 to Rutgers The State University of New Jersey (RBHS-School of Nursing) under the Cancer Treatment Research program (CFDA 93.395) on July 13, 2026, with a completion date of June 30, 2031. The award supports research targeting oligosaccharyltransferase (OST) redundancy for osteosarcoma treatment, an aggressive pediatric malignancy for which standard therapeutic approaches have remained largely unchanged over four decades.

Research Products and Deliverables The funded research will generate two primary products. First, the project will develop optimized small-molecule OST inhibitors through a medicinal chemistry campaign designed to improve metabolic stability, potency, solubility, and catalytic subunit selectivity of lead candidates currently in preliminary testing. These compounds have demonstrated efficacy in blocking osteosarcoma tumor cell proliferation in vitro and causing tumor regression in vivo. Second, the research will characterize the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying osteosarcoma sensitivity to OST inhibition through genetic screening and systems pharmacology approaches, with findings validated through functional studies. These deliverables aim to overcome existing pharmacokinetic limitations and advance candidates for translational studies, offering a potential new therapeutic approach for a pediatric cancer population with limited treatment advances in recent decades.