UAB, Alabama State, get $1.5 million federal grant to fight cancer disparities in African-Americans

By Jesse Chambers

 The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Alabama State University (ASU) have received a $1.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health to fund a four-year effort to help reduce cancer health disparities among minorities in the state.

The grant will be used by ASU and the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC) to develop a pool of scientists to conduct community-based research in ways to reduce those disparities, according to a CCC news release.

The UAB-ASU partnership seeks to develop and mentor junior faculty members and to build the administrative infrastructure necessary to conduct cancer research at ASU, which is a historically black college.

African-Americans bear an “unequal burden of cancer,” Upender Manne — a professor in the UAB Department of Pathology, a senior scientist at the CCC and lead principal investigator on the new grant — said in the release.
“This grant will allow us to jump-start our cancer research and education programs for our faculty and students at ASU,” Manoj Mishra — an assistant professor of biology and the principal investigator at ASU for the grant — said in the release.

Basic research efforts will focus on prostate and colorectal cancers, which affect a disproportionate number of minority individuals.

Manne is also the lead investigator of another cancer-disparities research partnership between the CCC, Tuskegee University and the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.
In addition, the CCC’s Deep South Network for Cancer Control has been recognized for its community outreach to increase education and awareness of cancer in minority and underserved populations.
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