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January 20, 2010

Texas awards $61 million in cancer research grants

Associated Press Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO — Texas awarded its first $61 million for cancer research Wednesday from what the state pledges will be an unprecedented $3 billion dedicated to the work over the next decade.

For now, the state has chosen 66 projects it will fund to help find treatments for a wide range of cancer types.

“Today we’re starting the work that Texans asked us to do,” said Bill Gimson, executive director of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

The grants were awarded nearly three years after Texas voters agreed to create the institute, which is second only to the National Cancer Institute in the amount of money it’s dedicating to cancer research.

Nearly 900 grant proposals were submitted for the first round of awards, meaning only about 1 in 14 were funded. The projects will investigate cancers types including brain, breast, cervical, colon and lung. About $21 million has been earmarked each year for cancer prevention and education services.

All the research will be done in Texas, mostly at already well-known places such as the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Among the largest recipients was Visualase, Inc., a private company that received $2.2 million to study laser therapy for prostate cancer. It was one of few private companies to receive a grant.

Dr. Alfred Gilman, the institute’s chief scientific officer, said he expects more private companies to receive funding this summer, when he said about $90 million to $100 million more will likely be awarded. When Gov. Rick Perry and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong toured the state pitching the plan to voters in 2007, job creation was among the selling points.

All grant recipients must match 50 percent of the amount awarded to qualify. The grants cover three years, Gilman said.

No other state comes close to the amount of cancer research money Texas has pledged. California voters in 2004 approved a $3 billion plan for a stem cell research agency, which opponents tied up in court for two years over the ethics of creating and destroying embryos from which the cells could be harvested.

In Massachusetts, a $1 billion, 10-year initiative to fund life sciences research was approved in 2008.

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