RESEARCH
Total research revenues top $610 millionGeneral Assembly establishes University Cancer Research Fund at UNC
New institute matches medicine to genes
FPG receives $8 million for autism research
UNC receives Lance Armstrong Foundation grant to study head and neck cancer survivors
Total research revenues top $610 million
As federal funding for research stalls and competition for investment from other sources heats up, Carolina has again grown its revenues.Growth hit 2.9 percent in fiscal 2007, putting UNC above $610 million in total grants and contracts. That’s $17 million more than last year’s record of $593 million, and more than twice as much revenue just 10 years ago.
“Our growth in sponsored funding reflects the high quality of innovative faculty who are finding solutions to some of the most pressing problems facing us today,” said Chancellor James Moeser.
“Carolina’s faculty are conducting cutting-edge research that advances knowledge and directly benefits the people of North Carolina and beyond,” said Tony Waldrop, vice chancellor for research and economic development.
While competition for funding from the National Institutes of Health has increased sharply, UNC’s share of those funds rose 6.6 percent to $314 million, accounting for 51 percent of overall investments. The School of Medicine attracted $298 million in 2007, almost two-thirds from the NIH.
The School of Public Health received $115 million and the College of Arts and Sciences attracted $95 million. Interdisciplinary centers, institutes and other units that do not fall under one particular school accounted for $138 million.
The School of Social Work grew by 36 percent to more than $18.7 million, and the School of Pharmacy saw a 41 percent jump in revenue to $13.5 million.
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General Assembly establishes University Cancer Research Fund at UNC
The North Carolina Cancer Hospital construction site in April 2007.
The North Carolina General Assembly created the state’s
first University Cancer Research Fund with the passage of
the new state budget. The fund, established to accelerate
cancer research at the University’s School of Medicine and
its Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, will provide
$25 million in 2007-2008 and is slated to increase to $50
million per year beginning in 2009.
Gov. Mike Easley signed the budget bill into law, Tuesday,
July 31, 2007.
With this new funding, the UNC School of Medicine and
Lineberger are poised to continue their international
leadership in cancer research, officials said. The research
funding will serve to improve the quality of life and
treatment of cancer patients nationwide and enhance UNC’s
access to science and technology. It will also increase UNC
Lineberger’s ability to discover and disseminate knowledge
across the spectrum of cancer research, and make real
improvements in prevention, early detection and therapies
that will benefit all patients.
“We are extremely grateful to the members of the North
Carolina General Assembly and Governor Easley for providing
this groundbreaking funding. It will allow our University’s
great researchers to make significant advancements against
a disease that has touched the lives of nearly everyone,”
said Dr. William L. Roper, dean of the School of Medicine
and chief executive officer of the UNC Health Care System.
“Our legislators have sent a clear signal about the value
they place on building even more momentum in Chapel Hill
for strengthening the faculty’s capacity to conduct
life-changing research and improve patient care,” said
UNC’s chancellor James Moeser. “The research fund will
further enhance the state’s wise investment in the North
Carolina Cancer Hospital, the University, the Lineberger
Comprehensive Cancer Center and UNC Health Care.”
“At UNC alone, we saw 15,000 cancer patients last year,
representing every one of our state’s 100 counties,” Roper
said. “We want to lead the way in combating cancer at home
and around the world. As one of only a few states with a
dedicated comprehensive cancer research fund, I am
confident that our institution will excel in developing
novel and more individualized regimens of care for cancer
patients,” he said.
“We are extremely grateful to the members of the North Carolina General Assembly and Governor Easley for providing this groundbreaking funding. It will allow our University’s great researchers to make significant advancements against a disease that has touched the lives of nearly everyone,” said Dr. William L. Roper, dean of the School of Medicine and chief executive officer of the UNC Health Care System.
The fund will enable interdisciplinary research in three major areas by creating a statewide cancer assessment and prevention program, continuing to undertake groundbreaking basic and translational research, and enhancing multidisciplinary clinical care and research teams.
“With the support of the General Assembly for construction of the North Carolina Cancer Hospital in 2004, and now this extraordinary cancer research fund, UNC has been provided an opportunity and a challenge – to become the nation’s best university cancer center,” said Dr. Shelley Earp, director of UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“We must and will develop pathways to move prevention, early detection and therapeutic research into the clinic and the community, the outcome of which will be improved cancer care, grounded in the latest research findings,” said Earp.
“The National Cancer Institute is extremely gratified to learn of the General Assembly's commitment to making a difference in the lives of those afflicted with cancer. UNC Lineberger is one of the outstanding cancer centers supported by NCI that conduct groundbreaking clinical research and provide state-of-the-art cancer care,” said NCI Director Dr. John E. Niederhuber. “Having the state government make a long-term investment in decreasing the burden of cancer and, ultimately, the burden of cancer health care costs, is truly visionary.”
“As a cancer survivor, the University Cancer Research Fund makes me optimistic about a solution to cancer,” said Kate MacIntyre, a UNC Health Care lung cancer patient who lives in Davidson, N.C. “The state of North Carolina is putting a stake in the ground, emphasizing the importance of cancer research to make very real progress under a dedicated program unlike any we have ever had. North Carolina is saying ‘We can do this.’”
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New institute matches medicine to genes
Howard McLeod, Pharm.D., director of the Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy
By translating genetic discoveries into new ways to
diagnose and treat disease, a new research institute
launched at Carolina will make drugs safer and more
effective and speed laboratory discoveries to physicians
and patients.
The Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized
Therapy (IPIT), based at the UNC School of Pharmacy, brings
together researchers and clinicians across Carolina to
create therapies and treatments for patients suffering from
a wide variety of conditions.
“The promise of the science of pharmacogenomics is that
each of us will get exactly the right medicine at the right
time in just the right amount,” said Chancellor James
Moeser. “As this new institute creates the tools to achieve
this goal and expand the power of individualized therapy,
we will save time, save money and, most importantly, save
lives.”
The institute initially will partner with the UNC
Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center to focus on cancer
therapy, with planned expansion into cardiovascular
disease, psychiatric disorders and global health. The
results will have both economic and health benefits.
“While extensive clinical trials often tell us how
effective a drug is in a large population, those trials
tell us little about any single person’s reactions,”
explains Howard McLeod, Pharm.D., director of the new
institute. “There are dramatic differences among people in
their reaction to a particular medicine. We will look at
the entire health-care process to examine the potential of
genes to guide medical therapy, allowing physicians to
optimize drug selection and drug dosing based according to
variations in each patient’s genes,” said McLeod, the Fred
Eshelman Distinguished Professor of pharmacy.
Pharmacogenomics is a new field exploring how information
in our genes influences our response to drugs. It involves
integrating pharmacology with modern advances in genome
analysis. The institute’s goal is to fully integrate
personalized medicine into medical practice by providing
tools and tests for physicians to identify patients at risk
for adverse reactions or those who are likely to benefit
from a particular treatment. Institute researchers will
also identify drug targets, such as genetic markers in
tumor cells, to guide development of new drugs.
McLeod has helped identify specific genetic variants that
predispose patients to risk of severe side effects or
inadequate benefit from drugs for diseases including
colorectal cancer and childhood leukemia. His research has
also had an impact on the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) guidelines for warfarin, a blood thinner prescribed
to more than 2 million people in the U.S.
IPIT will house one of 10 research centers that form the
National Institutes of Health’s Pharmacogenomics Research
Network. The institute’s researchers also lead the
Pharmacogenomics for Every Nation Initiative, a global
effort to help countries make better informed public health
decisions using genetic information.
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FPG receives $8 million for autism research
Two of the most often-used classroom approaches for teaching young children with autism have never been evaluated, until now.With a $3 million federal grant, the FPG Child Development Institute (FPG) at Carolina will soon begin answering questions about the programs’ efficacy.
Another $5 million federal grant will establish a national autism professional development center, which will help states incorporate effective practices for children with autism in classrooms, homes and communities.
Autism is characterized by impairment in communication skills, social interactions and repetitive patterns of behavior. In the past two decades the number of children diagnosed with autism has sky-rocketed 20 fold by some estimates. This rapid increase has placed great demand on early intervention and education agencies to provide effective educational and intervention services for children and their families.
“Research shows that if we intervene early, we can greatly enhance the lives of children with autism. This new work will help ensure not only that children are diagnosed as early as possible, but that when they are diagnosed they receive the most effective treatment by professionals who are prepared and knowledgeable,” said Samuel L. Odom, FPG director and principal investigator for both grants.
The $3 million grant, from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Science, will compare two classroom-based approaches that follow different conceptual models. In one approach, the classroom environment and teaching are shaped to fit the characteristics of children with autism by, for example, minimizing distractions, using visual cues and establishing highly predictable routines. The other emphasizes learning in regular early childhood curriculum activities and with assistance from typically developing peers. Although both models are widely used, neither has been evaluated for its short or long-term impact on children with autism.
The $5 million grant, from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, will create a professional development center to work with states to increase the number of personnel prepared to teach children with autism and to promote early identification and diagnosis. This work will be completed through a partnership between FPG and other UNC partners (Division TEACCH, the Clinical Center for the Study and Development of Learning and the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center), the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the M.I.N.D. Institute at the University of California, Davis.
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UNC receives Lance Armstrong Foundation grant to study head and neck cancer survivors
Treatment for head and neck cancer is particularly aggressive, affecting speech, swallowing, breathing and communication.A grant from the Lance Armstrong Foundation to Carolina will fund research on the experiences of head and neck cancer survivors, so that health professionals can effectively manage the impact of treatment on a patient’s social, family and work roles.
The three-year, $246,760 grant was awarded to Dr. Andy Olshan, professor and chair of epidemiology in the UNC School of Public Health and principal investigator of the study. Olshan is also a research professor in the School of Medicine’s department of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery and program leader for cancer epidemiology in the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Because quality of life outcomes are especially critical for head and neck cancer (oral, pharyngeal, laryngeal) patients and their caregivers, more research is needed on the experiences of survivors, especially among black patients, Olshan said. The study will examine the influence of social, clinical, access to care, and behavioral factors on quality of life. Blacks have a higher incidence and worse survival than other groups.
“Given the paucity of data and studies on quality of life among African-American head and neck cancer survivors we expect this study to yield valuable new data,” Olshan said.
Olshan and his colleagues will analyze data collected for the Carolina Head and Neck Cancer Study (CHANCE), the largest epidemiologic study of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck in the United States and the first to include a significant number of black patients. Patient information will be collected one year after diagnosis and three years after diagnosis. The CHANCE study, which is ongoing, is funded by the National Cancer Institute.
Pilot funds for the quality of life work were obtained from the Excellence Fund of the School of Medicine. CHANCE collaborators include Drs. Mark Weissler, JP Riddle Distinguished Professor of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery; William Funkhouser, professor of pathology; and Jianwen Cai, professor and associate chair of biostatistics in the UNC School of Public Health.
The Lance Armstrong Foundation, founded in 1997 by cancer survivor and champion cyclist Lance Armstrong, is a nonprofit organization located in Austin, Texas.
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