April 1, 2009--Duke Comprehensive Center member Victoria Seewaldt, MD, and Dihua Yu of MD Anderson Cancer Center were jointly awarded a $7.5M, 5 year, Susan G. Komen Promise Grant. This is a multi-disciplinary, bench-to-bedside grant that aims to accelerate testing of targeted agents for breast cancer prevention. The Duke Team includes Neil Spector, MD; Lee Wilke, MD; Catherine Ibarra, PhD; William Barry, PhD; Stephanie Robertson; and Tonya Daye.

Terry Lechler, PhD, has won a Sidney Kimmel Scholars Award which provides research grants to the nation's most promising young cancer researchers. The goal of the grant program is to improve the basic understanding of cancer biology and to develop new methods for the prevention and treatment of cancer.

March 25, 2009

Cancer Center member Yiping Yang, MD, PhD, has recently been awarded three new grants. From the National Cancer Institute, he received a new RO1 grant in the amount of $1.56 million for five years for “Novel Strategies for Cancer Immunotherapy in Stem Cell Transplant”. From the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he received a R21 grant in the amount of $429,000 for two years for his project “TLR Signaling in CD8 T Cell Response to Vaccinia Virus”, and a UO1 grant in the amount of $3 million for five years for his project “Mechanisms for NK Cell Activation in Vaccinia Virus Control”.

Andrew Armstrong, MD, has received a $275,000 grant from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network for "Impact of Temsirolimus Therapy on Circulating Tumor Cell Biology in Castration Resistant Metastatic Prostate Cancer: A Pilot Study."

Gerard Blobe, MD, PhD, recently received a $200,000 grant for three years from Susan G. Komen for the Cure for the project "TbetaRIII/sTbetaRIII in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Breast Cancer."