Creighton University researchers were recently awarded approximately 1.5 million dollars in grant money from the Department of Defense to help further research on a treatment plan for men diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The hypothesis they created was based off of research gathered from a small project funded by Creighton University three years ago.
In response to their acceptance of the grant, Dr. Yaping Tu, associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the Allegent-Creighton Medical Center, answered questions about the department’s plan for the research and the grant, which will allow the Department of Defense develop the program further in the future.
Tu will collaborate with Peter Able, Ph.D., Poonam Sharma, M.B.B.S. and Xian-Ming Chen, M.D. to bring the grant to life. According to Chen, prostate cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed malignancies of men in the US, which results in about 200,000 new cases and 30,000 deaths each year according to Chen.
The money will be dispersed over a three year time period to help research a possible treatment for the advanced stages of prostate cancer. As of now, the treatment plan is not as good as doctors wanted or wished for, which led to the Department of Defense creating a fund for research.
The application process isn’t an easy one, and requires many stages of acceptance. There is a yearly proposal for people wanting to apply for this year’s current topic up for research. After multiple screenings of applicants, they finally chose those who are leading with a research proposal that will have the greatest impact and innovation.
Tu sent in the application for the grant and was chosen out of approximately 1,000 applicants. He hopes their research will be successful.
“[We want] what [we’re] doing to have an impact on a human,” Yaping said. “As a scientist, I want to improve the quality of life.”
Tu’s main focus is looking for a treatment for prostate cancer that has reached a high stage and has become unresponsive to current treatment plans. Doctors, as of now, are unsure why at this stage the cells are resistant to the treatment.
The hypothesis they created was based off of research gathered from a small project funded by Creighton University three years ago.