The National Institutes of Health awarded the Tulane University Health Sciences Center a five-year grant of nearly $10.7 million to develop a program in cancer genetics.

Scientists believe that most cancers are caused by a series of genetic mutations that develop over a person's lifetime, and up to 10 percent of cancers are associated with a single inherited gene mutation that passes down in families. Many scientists believe that future cancer treatment hinges upon therapies specifically designed for each patient's own genetic make-up and mutations that occur in their genes.

"This grant is the centerpiece for the development of the Cancer Genetics Program within the Tulane Cancer Center and the Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium," says Prescott Deininger, principal investigator of the grant, who for more than 30 years has studied genetic mutations that might lead to cancer.

Deininger, who is director of basic research for the Tulane Cancer Center, discovered a new form of gene regulation controlling mobile elements in the human genome. More research needs to be conducted on how these elements respond in different people and how they are influenced by the environment to judge the overall importance of this regulation to cancer progression, says Deininger, a professor of epidemiology at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine who holds the Marguerite Main Zimmerman Chair in Basic Cancer Research at the Tulane University School of Medicine. Bronya Keats, chair of genetics at LSU Health Sciences Center, serves as the co-principal investigator.

The grant provides unique research opportunities for emerging leaders by establishing an enriched environment in which to develop junior faculty in both clinical and basic research in cancer genetics. It also includes funds to help support senior faculty whose role will be to mentor the young faculty in their development, and new equipment and operation of core resource facilities for research in cancer genetics. Three Tulane junior faculty are funded: Chuck Hemenway, Astrid Engel and Aline Scandurro and two LSU faculty members are funded: Andrew Hollenbach and Bo Xu. "This grant supplies research funds to five of our most promising young faculty to help them get their careers to the point where they can obtain their own major funding," Deininger says. "With luck, we'll be able to figure out what leads to these mutagenic factors, to help stop them from occurring, and design novel cancer therapies."

The funding establishes a new Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) in Cancer Genetics, as part of the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program administered by the Division of Research Infrastructure of the National Center for Research Resources.