IIT RESEARCH INSTITUTE AWARDED $28M FOR CANCER RESEARCH

New drugs for cancer treatment and improved options for cancer prevention could be the result of $28 million in new National Cancer Institute (NCI) research funding awarded to IIT Research Institute’s (IITRI’s) Life Sciences Group. The awards are among the largest ever received by IITRI for drug development.

NCI will fund two sets of programs – a $17.3 million program to study the toxicology of new drugs developed for cancer therapy, and $10.8 million in two linked awards to identify and develop novel agents for cancer prevention. IITRI is the only organization in the United States to be awarded funding in all program areas.

“The National Cancer Institute awards enable IITRI to continue to expand our toxicology and pharmacology program and allow us to step up efforts to identify the types of agents – both drugs and natural products – that could ultimately be used in cancer prevention and therapy,” said IITRI Vice President and Director Dr. David McCormick.

The $17.3 million toxicology program will look not only at toxicity induced by traditional drugs, but will also study agents that can eradicate tumors by mechanisms such as inhibiting blood vessel growth and opposing the function of cancer genes. The seven-year program will support drug development by identifying sites of toxicity and dose levels at which toxicity is observed, thereby providing support for early stage clinical trials.

The $10.8 million series of research programs involves studies in two linked areas of cancer prevention research:

• a $4.5 million award will support studies to identify new agents for cancer prevention, and
• a $6.3 million award will support preclinical toxicology studies of cancer preventive drugs, which will enable clinical trials with the most promising agents.

Agents to be studied by the IITRI team will include both drugs and natural products such as isolates from green tea and soybeans. Identification of more active and/or less toxic agents could lead to delayed onset of the disease in high-risk human populations, and could ultimately lead to non-toxic interventions that will prevent cancer in specific sites.

A second goal of the programs is to identify molecular and biochemical pathways that are linked to cancer induction, and to develop agents that may prevent cancer by modulation of these pathways. Success in these studies will ultimately lead to clinical trials of new drugs that can more accurately target cancer cells.

“Over the past ten years, our understanding of the biological mechanisms of carcinogenesis has improved dramatically, and drugs are being developed that are more selective in the regulation of these mechanistic pathways. This could lead to great improvements in strategies for both cancer prevention and treatment,” McCormick said.

Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting technological university awarding degrees in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, as well as architecture, psychology, design, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum prepares the university’s 6,200 students for leadership roles in an increasingly complex and culturally diverse global workplace.