Five UAMS Researchers Awarded Grants for Breast Cancer Research
| For the 26th year during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Arkansas Breast Cancer Research Program (ABCRP) has awarded funding to kick-start promising breast cancer research projects. Since the passage of the Arkansas Breast Cancer Act in 1997 that created the ABCRP, the Arkansas State Legislature has set aside funds that UAMS invests in novel research that has the potential to qualify for larger federal grants. Since then, the program has awarded nearly $10 million in direct research to support research into the cause, cure, treatment, early detection and prevention of breast cancer, which may lead to new treatments or better prevention strategies for the disease.
Ping-Ching Hsu, Ph.D., associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences in the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health and a member of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences Program, has been awarded a two-year ABCRP Principal Investigator Award of $250,000. The award will help fund Hsu’s research project, entitled “Precision Environmental Health to Tackle High Early-Onset Breast Cancer in Arkansas Rural Community Health Study (ARCH).”
Hsu is the principal investigator of the ARCH cohort comprised of more than 26,000 Arkansas women throughout the state. The cohort has high proportions of women who were diagnosed with breast cancer when they were younger than 50. Hsu’s research focus is to identify environmental factors that might weaken immune functions and ultimately lead to higher risk of developing breast cancer early, particularly in rural areas.
“Arkansas is an agricultural state that might present with unique environmental exposures in different communities. The high risk and high exposure seen in this group of women is understudied, especially in rural communities. I’m grateful for the funding that will be instrumental in helping us generate more pilot data to apply for a larger grant,” said Hsu. “There’s a lot of basic cancer research going on but none that’s looking hard at environmental health and cancer in Arkansas.”
From her preliminary data, Hsu suspects that trace levels of heavy metals and burn chemicals in the air could play a role in early-onset breast cancer incidence. Hsu will work with UAMS Regional Campuses and the UAMS Translational Research Institute to collect additional samples and data from women in the cohort, and with Brian Koss, Ph.D., an assistant professor and an immunology expert in the Cancer Institute to understand the relationship between environmental exposure and immune dysfunction within cohort participants.
Four additional UAMS researchers were awarded $50,000 grants. They are:
Yong-Chen William Lu, Ph.D., assistant professor, UAMS Department of Pathology, Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Cancer Biology Research Program. Project Title: “Developing CD4 T cell-based immunotherapy for breast cancer”
Zhiqiang Qin, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor, UAMS Department of Pathology, Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Cancer Biology Research Program. Project Title: “Identification of new natural products and related therapeutic targets against triple negative breast cancer”
Fumou Sun, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow. Project Title: “ROR1-CAR-T Cells Secreting CST6 Lyse Tumor Cells and Suppress Breast Cancer Bone Metastasis”
Mohammad Alinoor Rahman, Ph.D., assistant professor, UAMS Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Cancer Biology Research Program. Project Title: “Manipulating RNA Splicing as a Targeted Therapeutic Approach in Breast Cancer”