DALLAS – Sept. 06, 2024 – Eight scientists and physicians in the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern have been awarded more than $11.5 million in grants from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) to support the state’s fight against cancer.
“These awards are vital in advancing the understanding and treatment of cancer as part of Simmons Cancer Center’s mission in North Texas and beyond,” said Carlos L. Arteaga, M.D., Professor and Director of the Simmons Cancer Center and Associate Dean of Oncology Programs at UT Southwestern.
At its August meeting, the governing body for CPRIT approved two Clinical Investigator Awards, two Core Facility Support Awards, one High-Impact/High-Risk Research Award, and one Multi-Investigator Award for UT Southwestern. The latest grants, listed below, bring the total amount awarded to UT Southwestern from CPRIT for academic research and prevention efforts to more than $374 million since 2010.
- Kevin Courtney, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology, was awarded $913,682 to identify and exploit novel metabolic vulnerabilities in the treatment of kidney cancer.
- Ralph J. DeBerardinis, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Director of the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development and Director of Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern’s (CRI) Genetic and Metabolic Disease Program, was awarded $2,601,616 for CRI’s Metabolomics Shared Facility to advance methodologies in cancer metabolism.
- Neil Desai, M.D., Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Research in Radiation Oncology and a Dedman Family Scholar in Clinical Care, was awarded $1,460,229 to adapt radiotherapy clinical trials to treatment response and artificial intelligence innovations.
- Ram S. Mani, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Pathology and Urology, received a $250,000 High-Impact/High-Risk Research Award to map multivalent chromatin interactions to define the 3D genome of clear cell renal cell carcinoma.
- Sean Morrison, Ph.D., Director of CRI and Professor of Pediatrics, was awarded $4,362,563 as part of a Multi-Investigator Award – along with Samuel McBrayer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in CRI and of Pediatrics, and Benjamin Levi, M.D., Professor and Chief of the Division of Burn, Trauma, Acute and Critical Care Surgery and in CRI – to improve the understanding of how neurons and cancer cells communicate and use the insights to develop new therapies in certain childhood cancers.
- Yang Xie, Ph.D., Professor in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health and the Lyda Hill Department of Bioinformatics and Associate Dean for Data Sciences at UT Southwestern Medical School, was awarded $1,999,760 for the Pediatric Cancer Data Core, which was established in 2018 with CPRIT funds. This latest award will support continuing efforts to serve the pediatric cancer research community.
CPRIT, created by the Texas Legislature and approved by voters in 2007, has issued more than $3 billion in grants to fund cancer research and prevention across the state since its founding.
Dr. Arteaga holds the Annette Simmons Distinguished University Chair in Breast Cancer Research.
Dr. DeBerardinis holds the Eugene McDermott Distinguished Chair for the Study of Human Growth and Development and the Philip O’Bryan Montgomery, Jr., M.D. Distinguished Chair in Developmental Biology. He is co-leader of the Cellular Networks in Cancer Research Program in the Simmons Cancer Center and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Dr. Levi, who also has appointments in the Charles and Jane Pak Center for Mineral Metabolism and Clinical Research and in Plastic Surgery, holds the Dr. Lee Hudson-Robert R. Penn Chair in Surgery.
Dr. Morrison holds the Kathryne and Gene Bishop Distinguished Chair in Pediatric Research at Children’s Research Institute at UT Southwestern and the Mary McDermott Cook Chair in Pediatric Genetics. He is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Dr. Xie holds the Raymond D. and Patsy R. Nasher Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research, in Honor of Eugene P. Frenkel, M.D.
About UT Southwestern Medical Center
UT Southwestern, one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution’s faculty members have received six Nobel Prizes and include 25 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 22 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of more than 3,200 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in more than 80 specialties to more than 120,000 hospitalized patients, more than 360,000 emergency room cases, and oversee nearly 5 million outpatient visits a year.
