SIU Med School Receives Federal Grant

A research scientist at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield has been awarded a three-year federal grant from the U.S. Army to study the gene that blocks the spread of breast cancer tumor cells in the body. The total budget for the grant is $425,887.

The study will look at how breast cancer cells spread from the primary tumor to distant organs. The majority of deaths of cancer patients are caused by metastasis or spreading of tumor cells. This research may lead to new treatments for the metastasis of breast cancer, which is the most common form of cancer among women in the U.S.

Kounosuke Watabe, Ph.D., professor of medical microbiology, immunology and cell biology, is the principal investigator for the project. He also is a member of the SIU Cancer Institute.

This is the eleventh national grant awarded for Watabe's research. He has previously been funded for research focused on hepatitis and prostate cancer. His research, which totals $1.8 million, has been funded for nearly 20 years by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, United States Army, American Cancer Society and American Lung Association.

Watabe joined the SIU faculty in Springfield in 1985. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona in Tucson (1985). He earned his doctorate, master’s and bachelor’s degrees at Kyoto University in Japan (1981, 1978, 1976).

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