Researchers from Northern Arizona University and University of Arizona have been awarded $1.5 million to collaborate on a groundbreaking cancer study that will test a new way of treating cancer.

Ed Lewis, NAU professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Laurence Hurley, associate director of UA's BIO5, are focusing on the development of new drugs that kill cancer cells by inhibiting the expression of a specific set of cancer genes, or oncogenes.

Funded with $1.5 million from the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission, the pair of researchers will conduct two separate studies looking at oncogenes that are expressed in the widest variety of cancers.

This approach to cancer therapy attacks cancer at a genetic level so that drugs only attach themselves to cancerous cells. This is an important improvement over some current methods that can also damage noncancerous cells.

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For more information:

" Researchers at NAU, UA lead groundbreaking cancer study," Inside NAU, 9/15/2005