Four Wayne State University School of Medicine research investigators have been awarded American Cancer Society - Institutional Research Grants.

The four awards of $30,000 each will go to Vitaly Balan, Ph.D.; research associate in the Department of Oncology; Yubin Ge, Ph.D., assistant professor of Oncology; Elizabeth Kim, M.D., assistant professor of Surgical Oncology; and Leonard Lipovich, Ph.D., assistant professor of Neurology and the WSU Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics.

Each of the four has a joint appointment with the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute.

Dr. Balan's grant was for "The Interplay between prostate specific antigen and galectin-3 during prostate cancer progression."

Dr. Ge's grant was for "Targeting Histone Deacetylases for the Treatment of Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia."

Dr. Kim's grant was for "Evaluation of Overcoming EGFR Resistance Using Dasatinib in Combination with Cetximab and Cisplatin in Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cell Lines."

Dr. Lipovich's award was for "Long non-protein-coding RNA (lncRNA) molecules in estrogen-responsive breast cancer."

The awards are designed to provide seed money to support junior faculty members with an interest in cancer research who do not have national grant support. To be eligible, investigators must be an assistant professor or equivalent and must be within six years of their first independent faculty appointment.