UAMS gets $11.5M cancer study grant

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences announced Tuesday that it has been awarded a 5-year, $11.48 million federal grant to create a center devoted to studying the features and properties of molecules that drive cancer.

UAMS’ Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute will use the grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences’ Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence program to create the Center for Molecular Interactions in Cancer, according to a UAMS news release.

“The center will create a critical mass of researchers who are able to gain deep molecular-level insights into the mechanisms that govern the initiation, progression and treatment of cancer,” Robert Eoff, a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the UAMS College of Medicine who will lead the center, said in the release.

Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence grants are awarded to establish centers of research that will ultimately become self-sustaining, according to the release.

UAMS will use the grant money to create two research cores, structural biology and a biomolecular interaction, both with specialized equipment for cancer research, the release says.

“Essentially, we’re digging down to the level beneath the body’s organs to study the components of the cell — the molecules and even the atoms within them — to understand what makes a cancer cell cancerous,” Eoff said in the release.

According to UAMS, the center will offer researchers access to equipment such as cryogenic electron microscopy, which uses high speed electrons to view high resolution images from frozen samples.

“In the past, we were limited in the types of molecules we could investigate, but recent advances, especially in cryo-EM, now allow us to study a wider array of molecules,” said Eoff in the release.

“Another barrier was related to the incredibly challenging and labor-intensive nature of these types of studies. To improve the speed and capacity of our workflow, Artificial Intelligence and robotics will also be incorporated into the center’s processes.”

The center will have a formal faculty development program where seasoned UAMS researchers mentor junior investigators, the release says.