Arun Rishi, Ph.D., professor of Oncology for the Wayne State University School of Medicine, has been granted renewal of the Research Career Scientist Award through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research.

The renewal provides five additional years of support for Dr. Rishi’s research on the molecular signaling, developmental therapeutics and mechanisms of drug resistance in breast, lung and kidney cancers.

The RCS Award is given to scientists for their longstanding service, extraordinary contributions and accomplishments to VA research. Dr. Rishi has been conducting research with the VA since 1998 and has received continuous VA Merit Award funding since 2001.

“I am grateful for this honor and recognition from my peers,” said Dr. Rishi, a member of the Molecular Therapeutics Research Program at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute. “This RCS renewal will help me to continue pursuing new research, collaborative and mentoring opportunities beyond the traditional Merit review research program.”

RCS awards provide five years of research salary support. The five-year renewal starts in October and runs through September 2027. Dr. Rishi’s earlier RCS application was granted in 2017.

Dr. Rishi’s research investigates molecular mechanisms of disorders associated with chronic inflammation such as breast and lung cancers and reno-vascular hypertension. The diseases cause significant morbidity and mortality, with associated increases in direct medical costs, loss of productivity and quality of life in veterans of all ages, the VA reported. His work seeks to understand mechanisms of drug resistance in human triple-negative breast and non-small cell lung cancers, in hope of designing a nano-delivery system of novel compounds that activate CARP-1, a regulatory protein involved in cancer cell death, in drug-resistant cancer cells.

In 2018, Dr. Rishi was recognized by the Society of Asian American Scientists in Cancer Research for his outstanding research contributions, including significant impacts in discovering novel biomarkers for the early diagnosis, prognosis and risk assessment of various cancers, and discovering novel drugs for the management and treatment of cancers.