USA Health MCI Researchers Receive Grants

Three cancer researchers at the USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute have received grants from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama (BCRFA) as part of the organization’s $1.2-million investment in state-based research in 2021. The recipients of the three awards, totaling almost $110,000, include Dr. Robert W. Sobol, professor of pharmacology; Dr. Lyudmila Rachek, assistant professor of pharmacology; and Dr. Santanu Dasgupta, assistant professor of pathology at the USA College of Medicine. BCRFA grants often act as seed funding for developing studies, allowing scientists to generate data needed to obtain major national funding. Sobol will use a $50,000 BCRFA grant to expand his study of a new treatment combination targeting breast cancer that is resistant to therapy. Rachek and her team will use a $35,000 grant for a one-year project to elucidate the protective mechanisms of mitochondrial delivery of TAT-hOGG1 in breast cancer progression. Dasgupta is using his BCRFA grant to investigate mitochondrial genome alterations in women suffering from triple negative breast cancer with a view to develop mitochondria-based early diagnosis and surveillance tools.