CPRIT’s primary purpose is to find and fund innovative approaches to preventing and curing cancer.  CPRIT research awards support the spectrum of cancer research, including basic, translational, population-based and clinical research. We utilize a variety of mechanisms to facilitate innovation and reward individual creativity.  CPRIT also enhances recruitment of superb researchers to Texas and training of the next generation of cancer researchers. We seek people and projects that will have impact – that will change the way others do research or change the way physicians treat their patients. 

Because of the resources available in Texas, including unsurpassed research institutions, the state is perfectly positioned to leverage the discovery and development of new ideas into real results for Texans.  By fostering a non-competitive, team science concept that brings together multidisciplinary approaches (prevention, basic biology, clinical science, statistics, bioinformatics, computer science, imaging, etc.), CPRIT can stimulate statewide research collaborations with extraordinary potential. Most cancers are caused by changes in our own genes – mutations that can be inherited or that occur spontaneously, especially as we age, or that result from exposure to carcinogens like ultraviolet light from the sun or cigarette smoke.  The discovery of oncogenes in the 1970s ignited understanding of the molecular and cellular basis of cancer.  In many cases these discoveries have led to cures of certain types of cancer and greatly enhanced our ability to prevent and diagnose disease. But enormous challenges remain; the job has really just begun.

Dr. Herbert Levine CPRIT Scholar Rice University Dr. Herbert Levine is a Professor in the Bioengineering and Physics Departments at Rice. He is also co-director of the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP), a National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center devoted to applying concepts and methods from physical science to complex biological and biomedical problems. He is also coordinator of an international research network of researchers in the Physics of Living Systems, under the auspices of the NSF Science Across Virtual Institutes (SAVI) initiative. Read More »

A normal cell is a staggeringly complex machine. We know its pieces but are quite ignorant about the big picture. How do all of these pieces interact in the right place and at the right time to do the cell’s work?  And cancer is cellular complexity gone mad.  The delicate controls that determine the life and death of a cell are deranged. We must understand this complexity and the detailed consequences of loss of its control.  Such basic research points to spots where developing cancers and cancer cells are most vulnerable to selective attack.

We must translate this basic knowledge to practical strategies to prevent cancer, diagnose the disease at its earliest stages, and treat cancer in patients while causing the fewest and least severe side effects. Efforts to identify cancer causing agents and attempts to develop safe and effective cancer drugs and vaccines are the most obvious activities in this area.

We must prove that new potential treatments are in fact more effective and/or safer than existing approaches. This requires clinical trials – studies in cancer patients to compare a new approach to the current standard of care. We know that one person’s cancer may be very different from another’s – even if both have cancer of the same general type (breast, colon, etc.). We must learn to fit the treatment to the individual patient. This increases the challenge but offers great promise.

The expanding field of personalized medicine provides significant opportunities for CPRIT-funded research as new genetic markers are identified with increasing frequency. By aligning information technology platforms that combine patient information and clinical research data, more opportunities develop for targeted intervention and new methods of care – ultimately expediting the transition of research from the bench to the bedside. For example, research into sequencing an individual’s cancer genome will assist in identifying whether a patient is at risk for certain cancers, will respond to a drug, and help the patient avoid treatments that will not work.

The state’s diverse patient populations (urban, rural, poor, wealthy, various ethnicities) also provide an opportunity for comparative effectiveness research to inform patients, providers, and decision-makers about effective interventions for particular patients under specific circumstances.

Now is the right time, the best time for innovation that will lead to dramatic leaps forward and many more lives saved.

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