The Cancer Bioengineering Collaborative awards seed grants to promote research partnerships between Rice University and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, accelerating the translation of research into impactful innovations for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
- Current Funding Opportunities:
A call for proposals for the second round of seed grants will be announced soon. - Awarded Funding:
The Cancer Bioengineering Collaborative awarded its first round of seed grants in fall of 2024. Selected from a robust cohort of high-quality proposals, the five funded projects ranged from developing better treatments for pancreatic cancer and metastatic colon cancer to developing better immunotherapies, engineering bacteria as a cancer treatment, and improving the understanding of the pathophysiology of leukemia.- “Enhancing CAR-T immunotherapy via precision CRISPR/Cas-based epigenome engineering of high value therapeutic gene targets,” led by Isaac Hilton, Associate Professor of Biosciences and Bioengineering at Rice and a Cancer Research and Prevention Institute of Texas (CPRIT) scholar; and Michael Green, Associate Professor of Lymphoma & Myeloma at MD Anderson.
- “Nanocluster and KRAS inhibitor based combination therapy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma,” led by Linlin Zhang, Assistant Research Professor of Bioengineering at Rice; and Haoqiang Ying, Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Oncology at MD Anderson.
- “Engineering tumor-infiltrating Fusibacterium as a microbial cancer therapy,” led by Jeffrey Tabor, Professor of Biosciences at Rice, and Christopher Johnston, Associate Professor of Genomic Medicine and Director of Microbial Genomics within the Platform for Innovative Microbiome and Translational Research at MD Anderson.
- “Preclinical study of nanoscale TRAIL liposomes as a neoadjuvant therapy for colorectal cancer liver metastasis,” led by Michael King, the E.D. Butcher Professor of Bioengineering at Rice, CPRIT scholar, and special advisor to the provost on life science collaborations with the Texas Medical Center; and Xiling Shen, Professor of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at MD Anderson.
- “Deciphering molecular mechanisms of cellular plasticity in MDS progression,” led by Ankit Patel, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice and of Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine; and Pavan Bachireddy, Assistant Professor of Hematopoietic Biology and Malignancy, Lymphoma & Myeloma at MD Anderson.