IUSM/Riley Pediatric Cancer Research Program Grows Dramatically

12/20/2007

The IUSM/Riley Pediatric Cancer Research Program is 35 years old but the growth this past decade has been phenomenal.  Faculty in the research laboratories led by Dr. Wade Clapp (Frieda and Albrecht Kipp Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, and Director of the IUSM MD/PhD Program) submitted 5 major research grants in 2007 and all 5 were funded.  Recently Dr. Mark Kelley (Jonathon & Jennifer Simmons Professor of Pediatrics, Professor of Biochemistry, and Associate Director of the IU Cancer Center) received another R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI).  Mark's laboratory now has 3 NCI grants on which he is the Principal Investigator (PI) and 3 other faculty in his research program are PI's on NCI grants.  Other senior faculty, in the Wells Center and in the Section of Pediatric Oncology (Mary Dinauer, Mervin Yoder, Dave Skalnik, and Rob Fallon), have had similar successes. 

There are a total of 21 faculty in the Department of Pediatrics who are principle investigators on major research grants related to cancer.   Most of these grants are from the National Institutes of Health (including NCI) and other federal agencies.  These investigators have $30 million of approved research funding over the next few years from these agencies. 

Congratulations and thanks to all of these basic science researchers in the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research and the clinical/translational researchers in the section of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at IUSM/Riley Hospital.  It is because of these researchers and others that the outcome of children with cancer has improved so dramatically over the past 35 years and will continue to improve in the future.