With cancer diagnoses expected to hit 12 million this year and global cancer deaths expected to reach seven million, The University of Texas-Pan American is working toward improving cancer research, specifically along the U.S.-Mexico border, with the help of a major grant received recently.

The more than $1.5 million grant, which was awarded by the National Institutes of Health, will develop collaborative research and student training partnerships between UTPA and the Cancer Therapy and Research Center at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The projects, which started September 2008, will develop basic, translational, clinical and educational research on cancer related health disparities and will continue through August 2013. As principal investigator and program director, Dr. Bimal Banik received $910,000 of the grant for his work on the project.

“This grant is a great honor because it provides an avenue to improve cancer research in the Rio Grande Valley. It’s great news for me, other faculty members and students here at UTPA, as it offers students a great opportunity to get actively involved in research that concerns them and their Hispanic community,” Banik, who is the First President’s Endowed Professor and professor of chemistry at UTPA, said. “I see each grant as an opportunity to make research advancements and for that I will always be thankful.”

Banik said the objectives of the collaboration are to develop and foster cancer research at UTPA, foster research dedicated toward reducing the cancer burden on the Hispanic population, and increase the number of cancer researchers coming from South Texas. He said the partnership will be a great opportunity to encourage students toward creative thinking, enhance high-quality work techniques and acquire basic knowledge in the areas of medicinal chemistry, cancer biology, cancer disparities, and research strategies.

“These students will be focusing on synthetic design of novel anti-cancer drugs and we will be collaborating with UTHSCSA in order to test these drugs against cancer cells,” Banik said. “Many of the chemicals that have been synthesized in prior research have proven to be effective in killing cancer cells and were relatively non-toxic to normal cells so they are potential candidates for further animal studies.”

According to Cancer Facts and Figures (2008), approximately 82,000 people in the Latino/Hispanic population in the United States were diagnosed with cancer in 2006. During that same year, approximately 23,000 Latinos/Hispanics died from cancer. Continued...