Two University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences researchers have received grants worth nearly $800,000 each to pursue special cancer research projects.
Aime Franco and Ling Gao received two of the 109 research and training grants totaling more than $45 million from the American Cancer Society, the largest nongovernmental and not-for-profit cancer research organization in the country.
Each researcher will receive $791,000 during the next four years to study two different types of cancer. That research could later be applied to the treatment of future cancer patients.
The grants were a long time coming for the doctors, who spent more than a year working on proposals inspired by their personal experiences. They move the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute’s total research grants closer to the institute’s goals.
The nearly $1.6 million, four-year commitment from the American Cancer Society pushed the Cancer Institute’s research grants total to $14 million, Director Peter Emanuel said. To be a designated cancer center by the National Cancer Institute — a recognition that could mean even more funding and treatment opportunities — the Rockefeller Cancer Institute would need $18 million to $20 million in annual grant funding, Emanuel said.
There are 69 National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers in the United States. None are in Arkansas. Texas, Missouri and Tennessee are the only neighboring states that have such facilities.
The American Cancer Society grants are the first such grants the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute has received in about a decade, Emanuel said.
Franco will research how thyroid cancer progresses — by studying the cells found in and around the tumors. Franco herself is now 18 years thyroid-cancer-free.
The American Cancer Society estimates 56,870 new cases of thyroid cancer in 2017 and 2,010 deaths. The diagnosis rate keeps going up every year, Franco said, and researchers aren’t sure why. She said she hopes to discover more about why there is more such cancer being diagnosed and how the cancer varies from patient to patient.
The cancer is aggressive and requires aggressive treatment in some people, but not in everyone.
When Franco was a senior in college, doctors removed her thyroid and put her on hormone replacement for the rest of her life. At the time, Franco said, she didn’t want to know much about the disease. Then, during medical school, she realized the positive impact she could have as a thyroid cancer researcher who also has the perspective of a patient.
“For me, this is a very personal journey,” she said. “It’s also my own life in my reports.”
Gao was inspired to research Merkel cell carcinoma during her residency in the dermatology department at Washington University in St. Louis, where she saw patients with the rare but aggressive skin cancer and few options to treat it.
About half of the people with Merkel cell carcinoma have already had it spread to other parts of their body by the time they see their doctors, Gao said. The five-year survival rate is 18 percent when the cancer has spread. It’s 60 percent if it hasn’t spread, according to information provided by UAMS.
“The tumors are very difficult to treat,” Gao said.
The cancer — the diagnosis rate of which has quadrupled in the past 20 years — has no targeted treatments and chemotherapy can kill the patients, she said. Other treatment options are surgically removing the tumor, if possible, or radiation.
Gao will study the effectiveness of different drugs when it comes to suppressing abnormal cell activity and killing the tumors. In the future, Gao hopes, targeted therapy and immunotherapy will effectively treat Merkel cell carcinoma.
Gao’s and Franco’s research will be done in teams, and the results will benefit other researchers working with them and potentially cancer clinics someday, Emanuel said. The grants are just the beginning for Gao and Franco, he said.
“This is a landmark event in both of their careers,” he said.