January 18, 2007                                                       

SIU Med School Receives National Grants to Study Cancer

A faculty researcher at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield has been awarded two national grants.  Yin-Yuan Mo, Ph.D., associate professor of medical microbiology, immunology and cell biology, is the principal investigator for both projects.  He also is a member of the research team at the SimmonsCooper Cancer Institute at SIU.

A one-year grant has been awarded by the U.S. Army Medical Research to study small nucleic acids that have a role in regulating gene function in the development of breast cancer.  Total budget for the grant is $108,375.

The study will examine micro RNA, small nucleic acids, which may be responsible for transforming a normal breast cell into a cancer cell.  Identification of the micro RNA may lead to the development of new diagnostic markers for breast cancer as well as new therapies for the disease.

A five-year grant has been awarded by the National Institutes of Health as a subcontract of a grant to the University of Illinois at Chicago.  The study will look at how modification of some cellular proteins by certain enzymes can make cancer cells resistant to drugs used in cancer treatment.  The total budget for the grant is $98,455.

The study will examine the role of Ubc9, a cellular protein, in response to anticancer drugs and the effects of protein activity on cancer development and progression.  This study may lead to new and improved strategies used in the treatment of cancer. 

Mo's cancer research has been funded for four years by the National Cancer Institute and totals about $1.2 million.  He joined the SIU faculty in 2003.  He completed his postdoctoral fellowship in microbiology at Washington State University at Pullman, Wash., where he also earned his doctoral degree (1994, 1991).  He earned his bachelor’s at Zhejiang University in China (1982).