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Junior faculty members get grants Carolyn E. Reed, M.D., deputy director of Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) and professor of surgery, received a competing renewal of an American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant (ACS-IRG) in January in the amount of $360,000.   The ACS-IRG is an institutional award to enable HCC to provide seed funding for promising new cancer research projects by junior faculty members so they can obtain results that will enable them to compete successfully for peer-reviewed extramural cancer research grants. From 2003-2006, 12 awards were made.   Beginning in 2007, awards are up to $30,000 each and upon competitive review can be renewed for a second year. In December the ACS-IRG review committee reviewed 14 applications and awarded five.    The 2007 ACS-IRG awardees are: Matthew Carpenter, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences: Grant title—Translating advances in smoking cessation into public health impact: Identification of individual-level barriers to NRT; Amanda LaRue, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Medicine: Grant title—Chemokine regulation of hematopoietic stem cell-derived peripheral blood fibrocytes and fibroblasts in the establishment of melanoma stroma; W. Jim Zheng, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics & Epidemiology: Grant title—Computational analysis of gene regulation in cancer specific gene modules; Lauren Ball, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Cell & Molecular Pharmacology: Grant title—Regulation of growth factor signaling by O-GlcNAc glycosylation: Characterization of O-GlcNAc modification of insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1) and B-catenin; Chiara Luberto, Ph.D., sssistant professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology: Grant title—Role of mammalian sphingomyelin synthase in the regulation of NF-kB and cell transformation.     Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.