UT Health San Antonio receives $12.6 million grant for cancer and drug resistance research

Content by Claire Kowalick

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) received a $12.6 million Collaborative Program Project grant from the National Cancer Institute to define the functions and regulation of BRCA1, BRCA2 and related tumor suppressor genes and find new ways to fight cancer.

The $12.6 million grant supports a multidisciplinary research framework designed to improve understanding of the mechanisms of drug resistance and advance the development of new therapeutic approaches. It also supports the Mays Cancer Center's ambition to be recognized as a comprehensive cancer therapy center by the National Cancer Institute.

“This investment in research is a commitment to groundbreaking treatments in cancer care,” said Lei Zheng, MD, PhDManaging Director ofMays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio. “The funding supports our mission to make significant progress in bringing hope and fighting cancer.”

Leading the initiative is Patrick Sung, DPhil, a world-leading expert on the role of BRCA1 and BRCA2 in DNA repair. Sung is director of the Health Research Center's Greehey Children's Cancer Research Institute and holds the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Chemistry. According to Sung, mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 can lead to breast, ovarian, prostate, pancreatic and other cancers.

“Receiving this grant is a testament to our ability to collaborate as a multidisciplinary team and produce impactful work,” said Sung, associate dean of research and professor of biochemistry and structural biology in the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio. “This support will further enhance the synergy among project investigators.”

According to Sung, current treatments such as FDA-approved PARP (poly-ADP-ribose polymerase) inhibitors and platinum-based chemotherapy are generally effective in most patients. However, many patients develop resistance to these drugs over time as the disease flares up again. Understanding the causes of drug resistance is critical to determining appropriate treatment options and developing new therapies.

The research programme will be structured into several components, including an administrative core, three shared resource cores and three projects. The administrative core will manage the overall programme and ensure maximum synergies between the different elements of the research programme. The shared resource cores will provide state-of-the-art tools and expertise to facilitate research progress. The research projects will address specific questions to contribute to the achievement of the programme objectives.

UT Health San Antonio will lead all components except Project 1, which will be led by Dipanjan Chowdhury, PhD, and Panagiotis (Panos) Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Sandeep Burma, PhD, professor of neurosurgery at UT Health San Antonio, will lead Project 2. Sung and Eric Greene, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia University in New York City, are co-investigators.

From UT Health San Antonio, Alexander Mazin, PhD, professor of biochemistry, and Weixing Zhao, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry, will lead Project 3. Greene will serve as co-investigator.

In the three shared resource cores, Youngho Kwon, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry at UT Health San Antonio, will lead the first core (protein biochemistry and enzymology), while Robert Hromas, MD, acting president of UT Health San Antonio, will oversee the second core (chromosome replication and analysis). Leading the third core (structural biology and biophysics) is David Libich, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry at UT Health San Antonio.

The overall goal of the program is to create an effective link between basic cancer mechanistic research and clinical translation.

Click here to learn more about the scholarship.