Contact: Ellen Bank
843.792.2626
May 12, 2004
CHARLESTON, SC -- The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC)
has been awarded $5 million in lottery proceeds from the state to fund a joint
MUSC/USC Translational Cancer Therapeutics Center of Economic Excellence.
“The center will foster the translation of discoveries in cancer biology
to the clinic by providing a conduit for application of promising compounds
to animal models of human cancers and to clinical trials,” said Kenneth
Tew, Ph.D., D.Sc., MUSC’s new Pharmacology Department chair, who will
direct the project at MUSC. Frank Berger, Ph.D., will direct the program at
USC, and both universities will need to generate matching funds.
The center’s goal is to develop new collaborations that will generate
novel strategies to overcome tumor drug resistance in cancer therapeutics. MUSC
will focus on development of new drugs and testing their activities and mechanisms
of resistance in preclinical model systems. USC will utilize mouse models that
are predisposed to cancer to study the impact of gene dys-regulation and therapy
designed to influence tumor development in a whole animal system.
Tew comes to MUSC from the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia where he
chaired the Department of Pharmacology and held the inaugural G. Willing Pepper
chair in cancer research. He has an international reputation for research in
the molecular pharmacology of cancer drugs. His program focuses on two major
themes, which converge in the area of cancer drug development and resistance.
The funding will support two endowed professorships, one to be held by Tew,
and the other to be recruited at USC
“We anticipate that students at USC and MUSC will participate in all aspects of the program,” said John Raymond, M.D., MUSC vice president for academic affairs and provost. “I envision that undergraduate and graduate students from each university will have rich training opportunities at both institutions. These well-trained students will rapidly enhance South Carolina’s stature in drug discovery and development with longer-term impact on cancer treatment strategies. The students and faculty of this center will go on to generate new intellectual property that can be commercialized through patents, licenses, start-up companies and new collaborations and partnerships with existing companies both within and from outside of South Carolina.”
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