Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale will play a big role in a four-pronged brain cancer research grant that the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center received from the Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) division of the National Cancer Institute. The grant, worth $10.8 million over five years, will be used to seek new research therapies and to reduce deaths caused by a specific type of brain cancer.

The clinical and translational research, divided into four distinct components, will be led by 12 Mayo investigators at all three Mayo Campuses: Rochester, Minn., Jacksonville, Fla., and Scottsdale.

Under the direction of Drs. Joseph Loftus and Chris Lupinski, researchers at the Scottsdale facility will focus on the properties of an invasive protein that enables adult gliomas to spread. Adult gliomas are tumors that originate in the brain and spinal cord region, rather metastasize there from other body areas. The Arizona researchers will be working from a list of molecules currently known to inhibit that protein.

"Despite nearly three decades of intense research and clinical trials, current treatments do not increase cure rates for this type of cancer," principal investigator Brian O'Neill said of adult gliomas. Research may be later expanded to adolescent and childhood gliomas, as well.

The other phases of the project include studying the mechanisms by which drug and radiation therapy destroy gliomas, clinical trials, and exploring the possible genetic moorings of such tumors, which may shed light on the success of individual patients' response to certain therapies.

The interdisciplinary SPORE program, which includes a career development component to recruit future cancer researchers, was begun in 1992 by the National Cancer Institute to reduce the lethality of cancer and improve survival for patients by speeding basic research from the lab bench to the bedside. The Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has also received SPORE grants for pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer research.

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For more information:

Specialized Programs of Research Excellence

Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale