Leukemia Research and Cancer Drug Development to Benefit From $10 Million Mangurian Foundation Gift
A $10 million gift to Ohio State from The Harry T. Mangurian, Jr. Foundation will support six diverse areas at the university, including leukemia research and cancer drug development. The Mangurian Foundation was established in 1999 by Harry and Dorothy Mangurian to support medical, educational and environmental organizations nationally and internationally. Mangurian, a Florida businessman, died of leukemia in 2008. His wife died in 2015 after being diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. The gift includes $5 million for a proposed five-story Interdisciplinary Research Facility in the West Campus Innovation District, a facility that will provide space for the OSUCCC and its Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology (PIIO). The remaining $5 million will be divided equally among: Drug Discoveries at the OSUCCC – James’ Drug Development Institute (DDI); leukemia research, including clinical trials, developing synthetic microRNAs and purchasing equipment; neurological disease research; the MBA program at the Max M. Fisher College of Business; and student-athlete health and wellness initiatives. Read More
$10 Million NCI Grant Helps Researchers Study Impact of COVID-19 in First Responders
Researchers at The Ohio State University College of Medicine (COM) and the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center were awarded a five-year, $10 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to study the long-term, longitudinal impact of COVID-19 on first responders, health care workers and the general population. The grant will fund the Center for Serological Testing to Improve Outcomes from Pandemic COVID-19 (STOP-COVID) at Ohio State, a new Serological Center of Excellence. With this funding, researchers will learn more about the interactions among exposure risks, transmission, immune responses, disease severity, protection and barriers to testing/vaccination, with the goal of improving population health and clinical outcomes in the face of COVID-19. Lead co-principal investigator for the study is Eugene Oltz, PhD, chair of the Department of Microbial Infection and Immunity in the COM and a member of the Cancer Biology Program at the OSUCCC – James. Read More
$10 Million Gift Supports New Myeloma Research Center at Ohio State
A $10 million gift from the Paula and Rodger Riney Foundation will help the OSUCCC – James establish the Riney Family Foundation Myeloma Center for Advanced Research Excellence (Myeloma CARE), a center that will focus on accelerating myeloma drug discovery and development projects. The center is a collaboration between the OSUCCC – James Drug Development Institute (DDI) and the Division of Hematology at Ohio State. The Riney gift, to be provided over two years, will boost drug discovery research designed to explore potential new treatments using specific molecular targets, including some identified by OSUCCC – James scientists. The center will be led by Don Benson, MD, PhD, a professor in the Division of Hematology at Ohio State, director of the Myeloma Program, and member of the Molecular Carcinogenesis and Chemoprevention Program at the OSUCCC – James. Read More
NIH/NCI Renews Longest-Running P01 Program Project Grant at Ohio State
The NCI renewed a longstanding Program Project Grant that will enable researchers at Ohio State’s College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM), the OSUCCC – James and the Washington University CCC in St. Louis to keep studying retrovirus models of cancer. The $9.1 million, five-year grant renewal was awarded to principal investigator Patrick Green, PhD, associate director for basic research at the OSUCCC – James and director of the Center for Retrovirus Research in the CVM. Green also is a professor and associate dean for research and graduate studies in the CVM and holds the Robert H. Rainier Chair in Industrial Veterinary Medicine and Research. In addition, he is in the Leukemia Research Program at the OSUCCC – James. The goal of this PPG, which has been operational at Ohio State since 2003 and is the longest-running P01 PPG at the university, is to use a human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) T-cell immortalization model to gain an understanding of the microenvironmental, cellular and viral factors that lead to adult T-cell leukemia. Read More
$7 Million NCI Grant Renewal Supports Cancer Drug Discovery Research Based on Compounds Found in Nature
The OSUCCC – James and the Ohio State College of Pharmacy received a five-year, $7 million Program Project Grant (PPG) renewal from the NCI. The multidisciplinary grant will allow teams at Ohio State, the University of Illinois – Chicago and University of North Carolina – Greensboro to keep investigating potential anticancer drug leads based on compounds from tropical plants, coastal lichens, cultured cyanobacteria and filamentous fungi. The grant, which extends through 2025, is led by principal investigator A. Douglas Kinghorn, PhD, DSc, professor and Jack L. Beal Chair of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy at Ohio State’s College of Pharmacy. Kinghorn is a member of the OSUCCC – James Molecular Carcinogenesis and Chemoprevention Program. Since the grant was first funded in 2007, over 180 research and review articles have been published based on findings from the three collaborating institutions. Read More
Ohio State Receives $5.5 Million Grant to Study Health Impact of Youth Vaping
Ohio State researchers will study health effects of e-cigarettes and nicotine on youth and help develop vaping-cessation programs via a $5.5 million grant from the American Heart Association, which in April 2020 awarded nearly $17 million in grants as part of its End Nicotine Addiction in Children and Teens (ENACT) research initiative. Ohio State’s trans-institutional work will be led by scientists in the Center for Tobacco Research at the OSUCCC – James, including Theodore Wagener, PhD, Loren Wold, PhD, Liz Klein, PhD, MPH, and Megan Roberts, PhD, and by Peter Mohler, PhD, chief scientific officer for the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, vice dean of research at the College of Medicine, and director of the Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute. Wagener directs the Center for Tobacco Research and co-leads the Cancer Control Program, of which Klein and Roberts are members. They’ll work with colleagues in the colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Public Health and Engineering on a two-year project called Vaping’s End through Research and Innovation for Youth (VERIFY). Read More
James Patients to Benefit From NCI Grant Renewal for Studying Experimental Therapeutic Agents
The NCI awarded a five-year, $5.3 million grant renewal to help a consortium of academic institutions led by the OSUCCC – James continue conducting phase I and II clinical trials involving targeted experimental agents that provide patients with the latest treatments. The consortium is led by principal investigator William Carson, MD, associate director for clinical research at the OSUCCC – James, and is staffed by the Clinical Trials Office. The award, called a UM1 grant, will allow the integration of Ohio State’s experimental therapeutics efforts with three sub-site institutions: University of Kentucky, University of Utah and University of North Carolina. The entire grant amount will come to Ohio State. Distribution of funds to the sub-sites will be based on accrual of patients to the study. Read More
$5 Million NIH Award to Address Disparities in COVID-19 Testing Among Vulnerable
The Ohio State University received a $5 million, two-year award from the National Institutes of Health RADx-UP program to support projects designed to rapidly implement COVID-19 testing strategies in populations disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Ohio State was among 32 institutions to receive awards to help African Americans, American Indians/Alaskan Natives, Latinos/Latinas, Native Hawaiians, older adults, pregnant women, and people who are homeless or incarcerated. Multiple-principal investigators are Electra Paskett, PhD, MSPH, director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, and associate director for population sciences at the OSUCCC – James; and Rebecca Jackson, MD, director of Ohio State’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and associate dean for Clinical Translational Research in the College of Medicine. Read More
Researchers Awarded Federal Grant to Lead Multi-Center Study of Stem Cell Transplant Complication
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) awarded a $3.87 million, five-year grant to help OSUCCC – James researchers lead a multi-center study of thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA), a severe and life-threatening complication in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT) as treatment for blood cancers. Principal investigator (PI) for the study, which is titled MIDAS: Microangiopathy, Endothelial Damage in Adults Undergoing Stem Cell Transplantation, is Sumithira Vasu, MBBS, an associate professor-clinical in the Division of Hematology at Ohio State and member of the Leukemia Research Program at the OSUCCC – James. Spero Cataland, MD, a professor in the Division of Hematology, is co-PI. Read More
NCI Grant Will Help Scientists Probe Mechanics of Metastatic Progressive Thyroid Cancer
The NCI awarded a $2.25 million, five-year grant to a team of OSUCCC – James researchers who identified a new pathway that inhibits thyroid cancer metastasis so that therapeutic targets and/or biomarkers can be devised. In previous studies the researchers, led by principal investigator Matthew Ringel, MD, co-leader of the Cancer Biology Program at the OSUCCC – James, identified a gene called regulator of calcineurin 1.4 (RCAN1.4) as a metastasis suppressor. They found that the loss of this gene results in cancer progression by inducing a transcription factor known as Nrf3 that promotes thyroid cancer cell growth and invasion, and is associated with poor prognosis. In their new project abstract, the researchers state that thyroid cancer provides an outstanding model to identify regulators of late-stage cancer progression due to its long latency and the often rapid pace of end-stage progression. Read More
Researchers Land NCI Grant to Study Biology and Targeting of Noncoding RNAs in AML
A five-year, $1.95 million grant from the NCI will help a research team at the OSUCCC – James study how a certain long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) contributes to a common form of cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia (CN-AML) and determine whether blocking the lncRNA is a viable targeted therapy. Some 45-50% of AML cases are cytogenetically normal, meaning they have no chromosomal abnormalities. However, novel recurrent gene mutations recently have been identified in CN-AML. The most common among those are mutations in the nucleophosmin (NPM1) gene, and researchers at the OSUCCC – James have discovered that abnormally high levels of an lncRNA called HOXB-AS3 in the leukemic cells of patients with NPM1-mutated AML enables the rapid growth and proliferation of malignant blast (immature) cells. In this new study led by principal investigator Ramiro Garzon, MD, the scientists want to learn how this works and whether they can stop it. Read More
Ohio State Leads National Consortium Coordinating Center to Boost Junior Faculty Cancer Research
OSUCCC – James scientists Claire Verschraegen, MD, and Rebecca Jackson, MD, are playing a lead role in establishing and coordinating a federally funded national consortium that will help junior faculty grant awardees maintain independent academic cancer research careers. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded a three-year grant of more than $1.63 million to support a new NCI Awardee Skills Development Consortium (NASDC) in a project titled “Enhancing Cancer-Focused Education for Tomorrow’s Workforce – Coordinating Center.” The NASDC coordinating center, to be located at Ohio State and overseen by Verschraegen and Jackson, will provide infrastructure enabling four other consortium institutions to offer courses designed to mentor junior faculty who have received NCI R-series (research) and K-series (career development) grants. Read More
BRCP Grant Will Aid Study of Breast Cancer Initiation, Progress and Metastasis
A three-year, $1.56 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP) will help OSUCCC – James scientists study a component of the tumor microenvironment (TME) that promotes primary breast tumor growth and metastasis. Principal investigator Gina Sizemore, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Ohio State and a member of the Cancer Biology Program at the OSUCCC – James, says this project could change the way women with breast cancer are screened and treated for their disease. Read More