University of Utah researchers, led by Dr. Taslim Al-Hilal, are advancing lung and ovarian cancer research with $2M in NIH and DoD funding to explore new treatments.
Lung & Ovarian Cancer Research: $2M NIH & DoD Grants
Researchers at the Department of Molecular Pharmaceutics, University of Utah, are leading efforts to study lung and ovarian cancers with more than $2.0 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense (DoD).
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded Taslim Al-Hilal, Ph.D., a $1.4 million R01 grant to study how a prion-like protein Doppel can be targeted to treat lung cancer. He has also received an additional $173,854 from the NCI-R21 program to continue his research into Doppel as a new predictive biomarker for ovarian cancer patients.
Additionally, Dr. Al-Hilal and his lab have recently received STTR Phase II grant and Concept Award, totaling $500,000, from the DoD. The STTR Phase II is subcontracted through Giner Inc. (PI, Muhit Rana, PhD) and focuses to develop a rapid assay for multiplex gene detection in healthy and ovarian cancer patients. Dr. Riajul Wahab, the PI and a post-doctoral fellow of Dr. Al-Hilal’s lab is leading the DoD Lung Cancer Concept Award to identify metastasis-specific mediators of the Doppel axis. Dr. Al-Hilal hopes to collaborate with many researchers across the disciplines here at the University of Utah.
Dr. Al-Hilal, who came from the University of Texas El Paso, has a joint appointment between Molecular Pharmaceutics and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah. Along with 3 post-doctoral fellows, Dr. Al-Hilal also trains 5 PhD students - among them, Ms. Tamanna Islam and Mr. Angel Lerma hold the prestigious PhARMA and Curci foundation fellowships, respectively.
Additional Information:
NCI R01- Lead: Riajul Wahab, PhD and Zulfikar Azam, PhD
NCI R21- Lead: Zulfikar Azam, PhD, MD Mahedi Hasan, and Tamanna Islam
DoD Lung Cancer Concept Award- Lead: Riajul Wahab, PhD
DoD STTR Phase II- Lead- Shivaniben Dhadhal, PhD