In grants to fight cancer: Guess who’s No. 1? (Hint: It’s not MD Anderson)
UT Southwestern in Dallas takes the top spot in the latest round of funding from state agency
MD Anderson Cancer Center may be the world’s greatest cancer research hospital, but it’s still no shoo-in to secure the most grant money handed out every few months by Texas’ cancer-fighting agency.
The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas awarded $102 million of grants this week and comparatively little went to MD Anderson, even though its number of faculty devoted exclusively to cancer research dwarves other academic institutions.
MD Anderson got $7.5 million, good for only fifth most in the state.
The big winner was the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, MD Anderson’s recently emerging rival, whose cancer center was something of an upstart when CPRIT launched eight years ago but has expertly exploited the agency’s coffers to transform into a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.
It received $35 million of CPRIT’s latest allocation.
Just as noteworthy, MD Anderson received less funding than not just Baylor College of Medicine — second most, with $12.2 million — but also the humble Texas A&M University Health Science Center ($8.7 million) and UT Health Science Center at Houston ($8 million), which for the most part cedes cancer to MD Anderson, part of the UT System too.
To be sure, the figures represent just one round, where institutions are commonly up one time, down the next.
MD Anderson received the most funding in February 2017 and November 2016, for instance.
Still, MD Anderson’s second straight underwhelming showing — it received none of the $25 million in grant money CPRIT awarded in May — was a reminder that the hospital that annually gets more NCI funding than any other U.S. cancer center isn’t dominant in its own state.
It’s a concern that dates back to CPRIT’s first year, when a Chronicle analysis of the numbers showed UT Southwestern was far more efficient at winning grant money.