(August 6, 2008) Congratulations to the following Masonic Cancer Center members who are recipients of pilot awards through the center's Internal Grants Program. This program offers seed grants to members with the goal of fostering the development of novel research ideas that focus on a problem in cancer. In turn, the cancer center expects that internal funding will lead to nationally peer reviewed funding. This year's awardees are:

Brainstorm Awards

• Vivian Bardwell, Ph.D., Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, and Courtney Aldrich, Ph.D., Center for Drug Design—"Developing chemical inhibitors of polycomb repressive complexes for cancer therapy"
• Mark Distefano, Ph.D., Department of Chemistry, and Elizabeth Wattenberg, Ph.D., Environmental Health Sciences—"Light activated cancer drugs"
• Jaime Modiano, V.M.D., Ph.D., Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, and Sharon Murphy, Ph.D., Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics—"Effect of nicotine on nitrosamine—induced cancer"
• Theresa Rose-Hellekant, Ph.D., Department of Pharmacology-UMD, Edward Perkins, Ph.D., Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology-UMD, Jon Holy, Ph.D., Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology-UMD, and Amy Greene, Ph.D., Department of Pharmacology-UMD—"Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell promotion of breast cancer growth and metastasis"

Cancer Population Sciences Awards

• Steven Fu, Ph.D., Department of Medicine—"Peer-based proactive tobacco treatment strategies for urban American Indians"

Leukemia Research Fund

• Mukta Arora, M.D., M.S., Department of Medicine—"Association of genetic polymorphisms with clinical outcomes post hematopoietic stem cell transplant"
• Vivian Bardwell, Ph.D., Department Genetics, Cell Biology and Development—"An in vivo dissection of the role of BCOR in MLL-AF9 mediated leukemogenesis"
• Koho Iizuka, M.D., Department of Medicine/HOT—"SHP-1 function in human NK cell development and function"
• Dan Kaufman, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Medicine—"Anti-leukemic activity of human embryonic stem cell-derived lymphocytes"
• Ameeta Kelekar, Ph.D., Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology—"Dissecting a Noxa-containing multi-protein complex in human hematopoietic cells"
• Nobuaki Kikyo, Ph.D., Department of Medicine/HOT—"Novel epigenetic functions of the mixed lineage leukemia (MLL)-fusion proteins"
• Ashish Kumar, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Pediatrics—"Identification of co-operating mutations in MLL-AF4 leukemia"
• David Largaespada, Ph.D., Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development—"The interaction between molecularly targeted therapy and conventional chemotherapy studied in the mouse model"
• Tucker LeBien, Ph.D., Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, and Chengguo Xing, Ph.D., Department of Medicinal Chemistry—"Endoplasmic reticulum-localized Bcl-2 antagonist therapy for leukemia and lymphoma"
• Michael Verneris, M.D., Department of Pediatrics—"New approaches to identify minimal residual leukemia following allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation"
• Xianzheng Zhou, Ph.D., Department of Pediatrics—"Antigen-based targeting of leukemia stem cells"

Translational Breast Cancer Research Awards

• Junxuan Lu, Ph.D., Cancer Biology Section, Hormel Institute, and Chengguo Xing, Ph.D., College of Pharmacy—"Pyranocoumarin compounds for breast cancer prevention and treatment"
• Naoko Shima, Ph.D., Department Genetics, Cell Biology and Development—"A link between the DNA replication licensing factor MCM2-7 complex and BRCA1 in breast carcinogenesis"

Translational Sarcoma Cancer Research Awards

• Subbaya Subramanian, Ph.D., Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology—"Molecular characterization of osteosarcoma by microRNA expression profiling"

Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center (TTURC) Research Awards

• Lawrence An, M.D., Department of General/Preventive Medicine—"Nicotine reinforcement thresholds in novice young adult smokers"
• Stephen Hecht, Ph.D., Lab Medicine and Pathology—"Identification of an (S)-NNAL binding site in rat lung"