UT Southwestern Looks to Lure Cancer Researchers With $14 Million in State Grants

Texas' cancer-fighting agency is awarding $14 million in grants to UT Southwestern Medical Center to assist in luring leading researchers from Illinois, North Carolina and Massachusetts.The recruitment awards from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute are intended to bring established researchers and their labs to the state, as well as accelerate work by early-stage investigators. CPRIT also doles out money for first-time, tenure track teaching positions.UTSW is getting money in each category, including:$6 million to recruit established researcher Dr. Suzanne Conzen from the University of Chicago.$4 million to attract early-stage researcher Qing Zhang from the University of North Carolina's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.$2 million each to create faculty positions for Samuel McBrayer and Chengcheng Jin. McBrayer is now at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. Jin is at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.Recruits who accept the awards are designated as CPRIT scholars. Texas has 175 such scholars, with 53 working at UTSW.The awards are part of CPRIT's most recent funding round totaling $31 million.  Continue reading...