Research Matters
The Cigarette Restitution Fund will provide additional strength to important
research initiatives underway at the University
of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center (UMGCC). The UM Cancer
Research Grant commitment is for $9.5 million each year for the next decade, and
will benefit the health of Maryland residents and others through a variety of
research initiatives.
These initiatives include:
- Investing in translational research. This means taking
advances from the laboratory and applying them to help cancer patients at
the bedside. The focus will include new biomarkers for early detection and
staging, cancer vaccines, new drug design and research on mechanisms of drug
resistance in treating cancer.
- Enhancing innovative approaches to patient care (clinical innovations).
These include using new types of technology to deliver cancer-fighting drugs
or radiation directly to tumors -- which can target the disease more precisely
and reduce side effects - and increasing the number of clinical trials. Also,
it enables UMGCC to attract some of the nation's top scientists and cancer
specialists to speed our progress.
- Focusing research funding on most common cancers to affect Maryland
residents. These include breast, prostate, oral, head and neck cancers
and cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. A genomics laboratory, which finds
and analyzes specific genes involved in cancer, and a proteomics laboratory,
to discover the proteins associated with particular forms of cancer, are examples
of important research programs already underway.
- Investing in infrastructure. This allows UMGCC to renovate, expand
and equip critical research laboratories and clinical facilities.
- Collaborating with The Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Research Matters, an annual working conference held between the two academic
medical centers for the first time in November 2001, features scientists sharing
research activities and knowledge to move the discoveries into the clinic
much more rapidly.
By providing sustained funding over the next decade, the Cigarette Restitution Fund enables the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center to invest in people, technology and facilities to generate research breakthroughs that will improve the diagnosis, treatment and survival of people faced with cancer for years to come.
