DETROIT - Wayne State University School of Medicine researcher Leonard Lipovich, Ph.D., will receive one of 85 grants announced today for scientists proposing highly innovative approaches to major contemporary challenges in biomedical research under the High Risk-High Reward program supported by the National Institutes of Health's Common Fund. Awardees from previous years have made scientific leaps, established new scientific paradigms, and, in some cases, revolutionized entire fields.
Lipovich will use the Director's New Innovator Award, a five-year, $2.3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, to test a hypothesis that could lead to breakthrough methodologies to improve human health. His project will identify primate-specific long non-coding ribonucleic acids, or lncRNAs, that are functional in cell growth and cell death, within the framework of human estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. The goal of the project, which has broad relevance to other nuclear hormone receptor pathways in human disease, is to reveal the extent to which non-conserved RNA genes contribute to cancer pathogenesis in humans.
"This is nothing less than a paradigm shift in cancer biology. Ever since Richard Nixon's lost 'War on Cancer,' proteins - and mouse models - have dominated the study of cancer," he said. "Here, we systematically interrogate the contribution of non-protein-coding genes to cancer, with a focus on those that do not even exist in commonly used animal models."
Lipovich is a Detroit resident and an associate professor of the WSU Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics and of the Department of Neurology.
"What ultimately inspires me the most is the potential of this project to empower a new era of post-genomic therapeutics," Lipovich added. "I have a deep and abiding interest in actually improving human health and the human condition through therapeutic targeting of disease-causing lncRNAs, such as those that will be pinpointed by the newly funded work."
He is the first researcher from Wayne State to receive the competitive award.
"Supporting innovative investigators with the potential to transform scientific fields is a critical element of our mission,"' said NIH Director Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D. "This program allows researchers to propose highly creative research projects across a broad range of biomedical and behavioral research areas that involve inherent risk but have the potential to lead to dramatic breakthroughs."
NIH New Innovator, Pioneer, Transformative Research and Early Independence awards encourage creative thinkers to pursue exciting and innovative ideas in biomedical and behavioral research. The total funding, which represents contributions from the NIH Common Fund and multiple NIH institutes, centers and offices is approximately $141 million.
More information on awardees and the NIH High Risk-High Reward Research Program can be found at: http://commonfund.nih.gov/highrisk.
Lipovich's research will be supported by National Cancer Institute Award 1DP2-CA196375.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
About Wayne State University School of Medicine
Founded in 1868, the Wayne State University School of Medicine is the largest single-campus medical school in the nation, with more than 1,000 medical students. In addition to undergraduate medical education, the school offers master's degree, doctoral and M.D.-Ph.D. programs in 14 areas of basic science to about 400 students annually. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter @wsu_med_school and Pinterest.
Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution offering more than 370 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 28,000 students.