Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
A research team at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center has received a $3.24 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop a new type of therapy for triple-negative breast cancer – one of the most aggressive and difficult-to-treat forms of the disease. The novel treatment will be designed to attack the protein MDM2, a cancer-driving protein often found at high levels in triple-negative breast cancer.
The National Association of Geoscience Teachers has received a nearly $1 million gift from Maria Luisa “Weecha” Crawford, professor emerita at Bryn Mawr College in suburban Phialdelphia, and William Crawford. Half of the donation will be used to support the organization’s scholarship programs, including the Crawford Field Camp Scholarship, which is presented in partnership with the Association for Women Geoscientists. The other half will support the organization’s operations.
A team of researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has received a $7.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to fund a new clinical trial targeting triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). In previous studies, the team identified a new marker in patients with TNBC called GD2. The newly funded clinical trial will test the safety and efficacy of combining two therapies – naxitamab, a targeted antibody therapy directed against GD2, and sacituzumab govitecan, an existing chemotherapy-based treatment. If successful, this study will be the first to overcome TNBC’s resistance to sacituzumab govitecan by eliminating breast cancer stem cells.