The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has awarded nearly $4 million funding to a program led by the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston with the goal of increasing the number of cancer-prevention scientists.
The UTHealth-CPRIT Innovation in Cancer Prevention Research Training Program works to produce skilled cancer scientists and researchers by teaching career skills, team science, interdisciplinary communication skills and more. The program is headed up by Maria E. Fernández, director of the Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research at UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston.
The training program is planned to continue through May 2026, UTHealth said.
"Our center has an excellent track record of providing cancer prevention and control research training going back over two decades," said Fernández. "We’re excited to leverage our existing infrastructure to bolster the cadre of diverse and innovative cancer researchers in Texas, particularly scientists from underrepresented minority groups."
The CPRIT-funded program will build upon UTHealth's existing Cancer Research Training Program, the school said. It will include researchers from several schools within UTHealth, including the School of Public Health, the School of Biomedical Informatics and the MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
The program will also work to recruit a diverse set of trainees from underrepresented minority groups to increase diversity in cancer-prevention research, UTHealth said.
"Ensuring the research products work not only for a small subset of individuals, but for the broader community bearing the burden of cancer, is key in addressing cancer through an equity lens," said Patricia Dolan Mullen, co-director of the UTHealth-CPRIT Innovation in Cancer Prevention Research Training Program and a UTHealth School of Public Health professor of health promotion and behavioral sciences.
Physicians, researchers, hospitals and academic research institutions in Houston have received millions of dollars in funding from CPRIT to fuel cancer research efforts. The program has also played a role in recruiting early-stage biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies into Houston and Texas from other places in the U.S.
With a fall 2021 enrollment of more than 5,300 students, UTHealth is one of the largest college or universities in the Houston region, according to Houston Business Journal research.
UTHealth has a large presence in the Texas Medical Center and is one of the founding institutions of TMC3, a new 37-acre campus being built just south of Brays Bayou from the existing TMC campus. UTHealth will have its own dedicated facility on the TMC3 campus.
