AUSTIN — The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) today awarded 26 new grants totaling just over $61.5 million. Twelve of the grants were made through CPRIT’s academic research program, including five CPRIT Scholars recruitment grants, and fourteen through its prevention program.

To date, CPRIT has awarded 1,059 grants totaling more than $1.64 billion. The agency was launched in 2009 after Texas voters overwhelmingly approved a 2007 constitutional amendment committing $3 billion to the fight against cancer.

“With these new awards CPRIT increases the momentum derived from our critical mass of cancer fighting energy — from labs to researchers to prevention programs — across Texas” said Wayne Roberts, CPRIT chief executive officer.

The academic research grants, totaling about $47.8 million, include over $27 million for five Multi-Investigator Research grants that form collaborations among researchers from multiple Texas institutions. Additionally, five grants for the recruitment of emerging cancer scientists to academic institutions and two core facilities grants will enhance Texas’s research capacity and life sciences infrastructure.

The awarded prevention grants, totaling nearly $13.7 million, support prevention services for some of the most vulnerable populations in Texas.

The grants focus on evidence-based interventions including increasing HPV vaccination rates, providing access to colorectal, breast and cervical cancer screening and reducing the incidence of liver cancer through education and screening for hepatitis. Texas has some of the highest liver cancer rates in the nation. The two See, Test & Treat® programs are one day breast and cervical cancer education and screening programs offered in collaboration with the College of American Pathologists.

About the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas

Beginning operations in 2009, CPRIT has to date awarded $1.64 billion in grants to Texas researchers, institutions and organizations. CPRIT provides funding through its academic research, prevention, and product development research programs. Programs made possible with CPRIT funding have reached all 254 counties of the state, brought more than 110 distinguished researchers to Texas, advanced scientific and clinical knowledge, and provided more than 3.0 million life-saving education, training, prevention and early detection services to Texans. Learn more at cprit.texas.gov. Follow CPRIT at twitter.com/CPRITTexas and facebook.com/CPRITTexas.

AWARDED RESEARCH GRANTS

Core Facility Support Awards — Two grants totaling $10,598,728

  • Baylor College of Medicine
    • The Adolescent and Childhood Cancer Epidemiology and Susceptibility Service (ACCESS) for Texas (Michael Scheurer) — $6,000,000
  • The University of Texas at San Antonio
    • Center for Innovative Drug Discovery: Enhancement of a Shared Cancer Resource for South Texas (Stanton McHardy) — $4,598,728

Multi-Investigator Research Awards — Five grants totaling $27,202,887

  • The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
    • Acute Myeloid Leukemia in the Immunosuppressed Microenvironment (Michael Andreeff) — $6,000,000
    • DNA-Protein Crosslink Repair Pathways and Cancer Therapy (Junjie Chen) — $5,101,316
    • A Randomized Clinical Trial Platform with Translational Studies to Overcome Resistance in Triple Negative Breast Cancer (William Symmans) — $5,997,677
  • The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
    • Towards Carbon Beam Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (C-SBRT) for Higher Risk Early Stage Lung Cancer (Steve Jiang) — $4,103,894
  • The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
    • Comparative Effectiveness Research on Cancer in Texas (CERCIT) 2.0 (James Goodwin) — $6,000,000

Recruitment of First-Time, Tenure-Track Faculty Members Awards** — Five grants totaling $10,000,000

  • Pawel Mazur, Ph.D., Recruitment to The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center from Stanford University — $2,000,000
  • Cheng-Zhong Zhang, Ph.D., Recruitment to The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center from Broad Institute of Harvard & MIT and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute — $2,000,000
  • Prabodh Kapoor, Ph.D., Recruitment to The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center — $2,000,000
  • Myriam Chaumeil, Ph.D., Recruitment to The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center from University of California, San Francisco — $2,000,000
  • Alec Nielsen, Ph.D., Recruitment to Rice University from Massachusetts Institute of Technology — $2,000,000

**Recruitment grants awarded indicate only approval to negotiate offers; at the time of release candidates have not accepted offers.

AWARDED PREVENTION GRANTS

Competitive Continuation/Expansion Grants — One grant totaling $1,496,111

  • The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Postpartum administration of HPV vaccine: Strategies to increase initiation and series completion among low income women across Southeast Texas (Abbey Berenson) — $1,496,111

Evidence-Based Cancer Prevention Services - See, Test & Treat® Program — Two grants totaling $48,124

  • Houston Methodist, Implementing a See, Test & Treat® Program in Sunnyside Health Center to Provide Free Cervical and Breast Cancer Screening and Medical Home for Underserved Women (Donna Coffey) — $24,522
  • Lone Star Community Health Center, Inc. dba Lone Star Family Health, • Lone Star Community Health Center, Inc. 2016 See, Test & Treat® Program (Stephen McKernan) — $23,602

Evidence-Based Cancer Prevention Services — Seven grants totaling $9,046,499

  • The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
    • Implementation of an Evidence-Based Colorectal Cancer Screening Outreach Program among Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Patients in a Safety Net Health System (Amit Singal) — $1,499,826
    • Promoting Activity in Cancer Survivors (PACES): An active living intervention for breast cancer survivors (Madhukar Trivedi) — $1,365,226
  • Baylor College of Medicine
    • Leveraging a Community Network for Cancer Prevention to Increase HPV Vaccine Uptake and Completion among Pediatric Patients in a Safety Net Healthcare Setting (Maria Jibaja-Weiss) — $1,161,015
    • PREVENT HCC — through Screening, Vaccination and Treatment of Viral Hepatitis (Sahil Mittal) — $1,492,052
    • Reducing Racial/Ethnic Disparities in CRC Screening: A Comprehensive EMR-Based Patient Navigation Program Including Technology-Driven CRC Outreach and Education (Luis Rustveld) — $1,477,698
  • The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Promoting HPV vaccination among Hispanic adolescents and young adults using Health Care System-Based Interventions and Community Outreach (Daisy Morales-Campos) — $1,302,955
  • The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, School-Based Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Program in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (Ana Rodriguez) — $747,727

Evidence-Based Cancer Prevention Services-Colorectal Cancer Prevention Coalition — One grant totaling $2,100,000

  • The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Detecting Unaffected Individuals for Lynch Syndrome (DUAL): Screening, Diagnosis and Navigation (Theodora Ross) — $2,100,000

Cancer Prevention Promotion and Navigation to Clinical Services — One grant totaling $399,954

  • The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Use of Genetic Patient Navigators to Help Mutation Carriers Comply with the NCCN Guidelines and to Enable Healthy Behaviors (Theodora Ross) — $399,954

Dissemination of CPRIT-Funded Cancer Control Interventions — Two grants totaling $599,766

  • University of Houston, Statewide Dissemination of the "Taking Texas Tobacco Free" Workplace Program (Lorraine Reitzel) — $299,981
  • Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Access for Breast Care for West Texas (ABC4WT)Development of a Replication Model for Dissemination and Implementation (Rakhshanda Layeequr Rahman) — $299,785
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