The American Cancer Society, the largest non-government, not-for-profit funding source of cancer research in the U.S., has awarded $3,844,000 in new grants that begin on July 1, 2016 to researchers with Johns Hopkins University; University of Maryland, College Park; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the National Cancer Institute.  This year’s largest grant award in Maryland is to Cheryl L. Holt, PhD, director of the Center for Health Behavior Research at the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, College Park, who is also co-leader of the Population Science Program at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, to study, “Integration of Cancer Health Activities into African American Churches,” in order to help address cancer health disparities.  The following grant awards are in addition to multi-year American Cancer Society grants already in effect in Maryland.  Here are more details:

$163,500,   Amend, Sarah R., PhD, postdoctoral research fellow

Mentor: Pienta, Kenneth, MD, Brady Urology Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

“Lethal Disseminated Tumor Cells in Prostate Cancer Patients” (07/01/2016 through 06/30/2019)

$1,667,000,    Holt, Cheryl L., PhD, director of the Center for Health Behavior Research at the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, College Park, who is also co-leader of the Population Science Program at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, to study, “Integration of Cancer Health Activities into African American Churches” (07/01/2016 through 06/30/2021)

$792,000,   Leung, Anthony K., PhD, assistant professor

Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, “Increase microRNA Activities by Inhibiting poly(ADP-ribose) Polymerases” (07/01/2016 through 06/30/2020)

$300,000,   Schoenborn, Nancy, MD, assistant professor

Mentor: Boyd, Cynthia, MD, MPH

School of Medicine Johns Hopkins University, “Patient Preferences and Prognosis to Inform Individualized Cancer Screening” (07/01/2016 through 06/30/2019)

$163,500, Tubbs, Anthony, PhD, postdoctoral fellow

Mentor: Nussenzweig, Andre, PhD

Experimental Immunology Branch National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, “Mechanisms and Therapeutic Potential of Tissue-specific DNA Damage Response” (07/01/2016 through 06/30/2019)

$758,000, Woodworth, Graeme F., MD, co-director of the Translational Therapeutics Research Group,   

Dept. of Neurosurgery, University of Maryland, Baltimore, “Fn14-targeted Biodegradable BCNU Nanoparticles for Invasive Brain Cancer” (07/01/2016 through 06/30/2020)

Background on American Cancer Society research funding:

·         With an investment of more than $4.5 billion since 1946, and $150 million in 2015, the Society is the largest private, not-for-profit source of cancer research funds in the United States.

·         Since 1946 the American Cancer Society has invested more than $4.5 billion on cancer research and is the largest private, not-for-profit source of cancer research funds in the United States.

·         The success of the American Cancer Society research program is exemplified by the fact that 47 Society-funded researchers have gone on to win a Nobel Prize.

·         The American Cancer Society has played a role in most of the major cancer research breakthroughs in recent history.