The National Cancer Institute is making a multi-million dollar investment in a cancer experimentation collaboration between Grand Rapids’ Van Andel Research Institute and Cedars-Sinai.
There are 100’s of cancer conditions. Each year eight million people around the world die from them. Over the next five years Van Andel Research Institute and Cedars-Sinai will receive $2.5 million dollars. The National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Genomics Data Analysis Network says the grant is to “better understand how cancer begins, progresses and becomes resistant to treatment.” In particular, identifying genetic code errors that cause cancers.
Dr. Peter W. Laird is a VARI professor and lead investigator on the Genomics Data Analysis Network project at the Institute, he says “If we (VARI) can precisely define these errors we (it) can then use this information to better classify cancers and to develop new therapeutic strategies that take advantage of these alterations. These types of large-scale, collaborative projects are absolutely essential to ensure we have a clear and comprehensive picture of what’s really going on at the most basic level in cancer.”
Patrick Center, WGVU News.