The OU Cancer Institute awarded seed grants to three researchers this month to fund new cancer research.

A seed grant provides researchers with monetary support that allows them to experiment and collect data supporting their hypothesis, said Dr. Robert Mannel, director of the OU Cancer Institute. The seed grants provide key start-up money for experiments and allow scientists to move on with research.

These three seed grants are given internally by the OU Cancer Institute and will elevate OU researchers’ chances of receiving federal funding in the future.

Internal funds

This year was the first time the OU Cancer Institute was able to award the seed grants. They have two other seed grant programs in place within the institute.

Around $150,000 in grant money was awarded to three researchers: physiologist Dr. Ricardo Saban, urologist Dr. Robert Hurst and gastroenterologist Dr. Ted Bader, all of whom work on different projects, Mannel said.

Mannel said offering seed grants to members of the OU Cancer Institute is important because the institute’s members help obtain competitive federal funds and build the institute’s reputation.

Obtaining federal funding is highly competitive, and about 5 percent of those that apply for funding are awarded it, Mannel said.

“This grant is going to help us to show that this [research] is a good idea and [is going to help] compete for federal funding,” Saban said.

He said large contributors like the American Cancer Institute look for more than ideas and hypotheses from researchers when reviewing grants. Grant committees also look for supplemental data, which seed grants allow researchers to obtain.

Additionally, the OU Cancer Institute must offer seed grants and commit to research if it is to achieve national recognition as a comprehensive cancer center.

Mannel said the institute plans to continue awarding grants every year and hopes to fund an additional three grants totalling $300,000 to institute members for cancer research.

Grant break down

The three recipients of the seed grants are researching different aspects of cancer.

Hurst is the primary researcher for experiments looking at cells in the Human Genome Project that have not yet been researched. He received $75,000 in funding for his research and said this will allow him to progress his research in a number of important ways.

“We haven’t cured cancer, because half of the genes, we don’t know anything about,” Hurst said. “I am very excited about this experiment because it may cut years off our research.”

Hurst said there are many cells within the Human Genome that have never been studied and believes that these unstudied cells might contribute to scientists’ current inability to cure cancer.

“Until recently, we have had to study actions of genes and proteins one or two at a time,” Hurst said. “Now it is possible to look at the function as a whole and see what’s involved.”

The second grant was awarded to Saban, a physiology professor who is studying the role of Interleukin-6 and its role in the development of bladder cancer.

Interleukin-6 is a cytokine which works as an immune system signaling molecule and, when examined in urine, tells researchers if the tumors are increasing or decreasing in size.

Saban said the evolution of Interleukin-6 is valuable because it allows doctors to learn things about patients’ tumors without performing a biopsy.

While Saban and his team understand that Interleukin-6 is useful in combating bladder cancer, they don’t know how it functions and therefore will spend time studying its characteristics.

The final grant was awarded to Bader, a gastroenterology professor.

Bader and his team will use their grant money to conduct a clinical trial studying the effectiveness of adding a drug, Fluvastatin, to patients with Hepatitis C.

The research is an extension of a phase II clinical trial. Through these experiments, his team will be able to determine whether Fluvastatin is able to decrease the risks of people with Hepatitis C contracting Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

“I get turned down on so many grants and it was nice to come in first,” Bader said. “It’s become so competitive to get grants and it was nice to get money for my research since money is so tight.”

Although all researchers at the OU Cancer Institute are seeking solutions for cancer, the grants are awarded individually, and each researcher will continue to study singular aspects of cancer according to their individual specialty.