Sunday, May 11, 2025
5/11/2025
Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Construction - The LSU Cancer Center in New Orleans has developed important basic, clinical and public health research programs to understand the root causes of cancer in our region, determine why it preferentially impacts the African American population resulting in a major health disparity, and develop new approaches to prevent, detect and treat cancer in our region. The goal of this funding request is to support and update the current Core laboratories to ensure we have a cutting-edge pipeline of tumor and its associated tissues (normal tissue, peripheral blood mononuclear cells and serum) from cancer patients in Louisiana to support research programs that advance our understanding and treatment of cancer in our state. Through its partnership with other academic and medical institutions, LSU clinicians and researchers lead programs such as the Gulf South NCORP, the only state-wide clinical trials program involving all 5 major hospital systems, and the Louisiana Tumor Registry, one of the leading national SEER registries in the country. These have empowered our researchers to successfully compete for major federal grants to study how genetics, obesity and metabolic syndrome (diabetes) and viruses impact cancer in our state and create major health disparities in our region. The Louisiana Tumor Registry at our Cancer Center has legislative authority to access all tumor samples (retrospective and prospective) from cancer patients in our state. As such we have collected several thousand samples from patients with triple negative breast cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer and endometrial cancer among others, which are now the basis of ongoing research projects. However, we are in need of upgrading our Core Laboratory equipment such that all tumor samples collected can rapidly and consistently be processed and prepared by the Core Laboratories in the LSU Cancer Center to be used in major research projects . The advanced equipment requested through this grant will support the collection of tumor samples into the Tumor Biorepository Core Laboratory, the preparation and specialized staining of samples by the Histology Core Laboratory, the separation of purified tumor cells and immune cells in the Immunology Core Laboratory and the genetic and molecular testing of the cancer samples in the Genomics Core Laboratory. The equipment we are requesting will place the LSU Cancer Center in position to have a well-established pipeline of unique tumor samples to study the cause, development and treatment of cancer among our citizens. In addition to assisting our investigators in obtaining federal grants, this will also attract other collaborators to help us provide cutting edge cancer research and treatment to our patients, and it will provide us with significant insight into why and how cancer affects our minority African American population. Cutting-edge research in our state will lead to better prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer in our region, saving countless lives and optimizing health care expenditures.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).