Shridar Ganesan, cancer researcher and associate director for translational science, in his lab at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick. The lab is one of the arms of Rutgers that will benefit from a $10 million anonymous donation.
(Keith Muccilli/For The Star-Ledger)
Rutgers University has received a $10 million anonymous grant to help its scientists discover targeted therapies for hard-to-treat cancers.
The donation, given over two years, will fund everything from clinical trials to undergraduate training in the growing field known as "precision medicine."
The money was given by a couple who feel it is important that the state's residents have top-flight cancer treatment available to them without having to go to New York or Philadelphia, said Nevin Kessler, president of the Rutgers University Foundation.
While Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey is one of only 41 federally designated centers in the country, "because we have New York and Philadelphia at our doorstep, we can be overshadowed," Kessler said.
The anonymous couple, one of whom is a Rutgers alum, also has a strong interest in science. "This gift was really guided by their interest and passion," he said.
"I’m personally excited to see what this will do for patients," said Shidar Ganesan, medical oncologist and principal investigator for precision medical clinical trials at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey. "This should allow not only more clinical trials, but better, more effective and more efficient trials."
The gift includes support for the advanced genomic analysis of cancers undertaken at RUCDR Infinite Biologics, the repository of cell and DNA tissue samples that is now part of the Rutgers Human Genetics Institute of New Jersey.
It also includes $1 million to underwrite the cost of drafting a new undergraduate curriculum in cancer genetics, along with money to endow two faculty slots.
"We need to train people," said Ganesan. "This kind of genomic analysis is going to be a growing part of medicine."
For patients with some types of cancers, doctors are already able to determine the specific genetic mutations that have allowed the cancer to grow. If the patient is lucky, these gene "typos" in their DNA instruction manual may respond to a new medicine targeted for that specific cancer.
Cancers with such specific treatments are still the minority, said Ganesan. In addition, it can take months to do the genetic sequencing of a patient’s tumor cells — a difficult delay for someone with late-stage cancer.
The grant will help Rutgers physicians continue to reduce the time between diagnosis and the determination if a targeted therapy exists for that variation of cancer.
In addition, it will help speed behind-the-scenes research aimed at finding new mutations, or whether mutations that drive one kind of cancer are also present in a second type as well. If so, medicine that exists for a certain type of breast cancer might prove effective against a certain type of lung cancer. said Ganesan.
"Cancer isn't one disease. It's a collection of diseases," Ganesan said. Increasing researchers are realizing it's as foolish to seek a single cure to for cancer as it would be to seek a single cure for all the types of infection that cause illness.
Instead, the kind of genetic research supported by the donation will help tackle different types of cancer, one by one. "Our classification of cancer is going to undergo a sea change," Ganesan said.